


red sun

by alicebishop



Series: Gay Vampires Universe [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Changbin is a Reticent Empath, Felix has mommy issues, Felix is an Unreliable Prophet, Found Family, Gay Vampires Universe, M/M, Stray Kids/Twilight Crossover, Vampires, which is to say she's a crazy vampire zealot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 17:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicebishop/pseuds/alicebishop
Summary: "My body froze. That voice. It was so close, so familiar. Sweet and deep like music."Hope is dangerous. Hope is what Lee Felix felt when he foresaw his six brothers and the love of his life in a vision. But what if the family of vampires aren't as perfect as he expected? And what if his past comes back to find him, more tempting than when he left it behind?
Relationships: Bang Chan/Bak Haseong (OC), Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin/Yang Jeongin | I.N, Lee Felix & Ngai Fei (OC), Lee Felix/Seo Changbin
Series: Gay Vampires Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214105
Kudos: 7





	1. i found you in the lion's mouth

##### prelude (1918)

I knew it was right — to leave, to run away. But I was crying so hard. Everything I knew, the smell of animals and alcohol and petrol, was behind me, fading fast as I ran into the forest, the sound of dogs barking only pushing me farther.

I was heaving my bag in one hand, swatting branches out of my face with the other. I burst out of the trees, nearly tripped over the train tracks, and booked it north, only the moonlight to guide me. The freight train had to come soon. It rolled by our site every night at midnight, and its shrill whistle had been calling for me to go with it.

_“Yongbok!”_

My breath stopped. It was my father’s voice. Flashes of light flickered through the forest, the barking was getting closer.

Then the train whistle echoed off the mountains. I ran toward it, a deranged sprint. The men chasing me were shouting my name, ordering me to stop. In their fucking dreams.

The blur of a train emerged from around the bend, three times taller than me and coming fast. It sped past me, its massive wheels shaking the ground. I ran in the opposite direction, alongside it, looking for an open boxcar.

I saw my chance too late. The doors flew past me — I pivoted and scrambled to catch up. The train was picking up pace, whistle still blaring. I yanked my bag off my shoulder, flung it into the car and grabbed one of the doors. It clunked back into place — I stumbled and lost my footing. My shoes scraped against the ground as I reached for the door with my other hand.

I heaved myself into the car and fell onto my back, panting. I let out a hysterical laugh, pulling at my own hair. Jesus Christ, I did it. I couldn’t concentrate on the fear, the countless ways I could die within the next month, or that my father might somehow track me down. For the moment, all I could process was relief, relief that I would never again feel as worthless and terrified as I had for the last 19 years of my life.

I sat up, pulled my duffel bag into my lap, all the earthly possessions I owned. I heard the sound of wood and metal clanking together as the boxcar juddered back and forth. It was dark onboard, shadows everywhere, filling each corner.

“Look at that…”

A voice from the darkness. I flinched. “Hello?”

“What are you doing out here, young one?” The voice was so sweet and deep, like music.

“I… I don’t know. Who are you? Where are you?”

The voice was closer now though I didn’t see any movement. “What’s your name?”

“Um. Felix. Yeah. Felix.”

Closer still. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Fei.”

“What are you?”

“Your heart is beating quite quickly, isn’t it?”

I swallowed. “You… you can hear it?”

“Yes. Very well.” A boney, calloused hand inched into a sliver of light cast by the moon. “In fact, I can smell the blood it pumps. I can practically… taste it…” A low chuckle, but it sounded like a tiger’s growl.

I scrambled toward the doors but a hand caught my collar, yanked me back. I slammed into something hard — wooden crates crashed down all around me. I still couldn’t see her, she was a wight in the dark, but I heard her breath, rough and fast and excited.

I couldn’t do anything but tremble, too scared to move, as a pair of long hands reached toward me, and something glowing red glinted in the darkness. The hands — gentle, attentive, cold as ice — held my cheeks, pulled me into the shadows, and I felt only a trace of breath against my throat.

##### chapter 1 (1922)

I didn’t exactly know where I was going.

The trees were expressionless, impossible to tell apart, and the snow-covered ground yielded nothing but my own footprints. At least I knew where I came from.

I slowed from a sprint and focussed, despite being in a _little bit_ of a desperate hurry. My ears perked up. I could hear water sloshing against some kind of barrier. Human footsteps against dirt roads. I headed that way.

The war-torn city appeared through the forest. There wasn’t anyone in sight. I jiggled my bare feet until the snow came off. I would have given anything for a pair of shoes — the soles on my last ones were toast after running for so long. Fei had told me I didn’t need such accoutrements but I still felt nervy without them.

I sped up again, darting through the city. It was late, deserted except for the people asleep in the alleys. Their smells were tempting, not warm enough, not healthy, but it was blood and — good god — I wanted it. I hadn’t fed since the last city I’d passed through, and that was a whole frozen wasteland ago…

But I wouldn’t stop.

But I was so thirsty… but I would _not_ stop.

The sound of water got closer and louder until I could see it. A shipyard, empty save for the hulking, skeletal rigs reaching skyward, made of some kind of newfangled metal that I couldn’t place. There were no humans nearby, but their scent was somehow closer now, rawer…

A hand, a claw, crushed around my neck and slammed my back to the ground. I snarled, flung my legs around my attacker’s arm, thrashed against him. His skin squealed, splintered — he let go for a second, long enough for me to dash out from under him. He was on my heels, chasing me deeper into the shipyard.

Now I could hear them. They were all around. Feeding.

All I could do was hope he — the one I was looking for — was among them.

I pivoted and rammed my shoulder into my pursuer’s gut. He pitched backward and dropped to the bridge. I was about to go for his throat but he wheeled me over his head, pinned me to the ground. I yanked him to the side, tried to straddle him, but he forced me over again, held me to the ground with his knee to my back.

I gasped a desperate breath and yelled as loudly as I could.

_“Seo Changbin!”_

There was a lull. Then the vampire yanked me up and put me in a headlock. Bare feet ghosted toward me, low snarls from all directions. So many of them. Two grabbed my arms and pulled. The brace around my neck was only getting tighter. I could feel my own skin breaking.

A guttural growl sounded from the distance. Suddenly I was free. I craned around, bashed my foot into a male’s face and sent him over the walkway. Another male came at me from the right, but something rammed into him, a ghost in the foggy air. I heard a splash in the water, a few bare feet back away, growls subside.

I hadn’t even gotten up before the same ghost grabbed my shirt, yanked me to my feet.

I didn’t fight it. This was him — the guy I’d seen in my premonition. He glared up at me, eyes bright red, a hushed growl hissing through his lips.

“Who the hell are you?” he spat. “How do you know my name? Talk. Now.”

“My name is Lee Felix,” I said, but it came out mousy and quiet. I cleared my throat. “I know your name because I’m a precognitive, a clairvoyant, whatever you wanna call it. I saw you in a vision and I came to find you.”

Changbin’s eyes narrowed very slowly. “You’re saying you see the future?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I swear it’s not. I was supposed to come get you. We need to go find these guys in England — it’s west of here. They’re our family, they love us.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I will. You’ll get to know me, too. Come with me.”

He shoved me away. “You’re delusional. Get outta here.”

“Not without you.”

“I’m not going.”

“And I’m not leaving until you change your mind.”

His hand whipped out and grabbed my shirt again. “You wanna bet?”

“Get your hands _off_ me,” I snarled.

He let me go, nostrils flaring. “You show up, scream my name, blather about the future, and I’m supposed to think you’re a prophet or something?”

“I’m not a prophet, I’m a… fortune teller. There’s more out there, for both of us, you just need to trust me.”

“Why would I trust you?”

“Because you have nothing to lose? Especially not with this lot. Why do you even stay with them? They don’t love you, they couldn’t care less about you.”

“At least I’m still alive. At least I’m not alone.”

“Aren’t you?”

He blinked once, his only tell.

“I’m not delusional,” I said. “I promise you, we have a home. Let me show you there.”

His eyes were hard on mine, unmoving. For a second, I thought he was hearing me out.

Then I felt heavy. It started at the tips of my fingers and inched up my hands, wrists, arms. My knees wobbled and buckled. I collapsed to the snow-covered ground, broke the fall with my numb hands.

Changbin took my arms and heaved me over his shoulder. What the hell had he done to me? Did he have some kind of coma-inducing gift? I willed my arms to smack the hell out of him but they just drooped against his back.

I heard another member of his coven leap onto the dock. It was the male who had attacked me first — I could smell myself on him.

“You better not listen to him, it’s nonsense.”

“I know.”

“What’re you gonna do with him?”

“I’m dealing with it, get the fuck outta here.”

The male grumbled an affirmative and wandered away. Changbin sprinted out of the shipyard, into the city streets, my arms flapping wildly behind him. I tried to move my lips — all that came out was a low growl.

“Stay quiet,” he muttered.

Feeling came back into my body the way it had left — from my fingers inward. I clenched and unclenched my hands, curled and uncurled my toes. I was almost ready to knock him on his ass when he stopped, let me slump down onto my back. We were in the forest now, under the cover of trees.

“I’m in,” he said. “I’ll come with you till you prove the family exists.”

I grinned hugely — I could feel my face again. “You’ll come with me?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“C’mon, let’s get this show on the road.” I pushed myself up, stretching my arms and legs. I was about to ask how he’d incapacitated me, but he walked past — bumped my shoulder — and disappeared westward into the forest. I ran after him, slow at first, and then caught up once I was sure I wouldn’t face-plant.

“How’d you do that?” I asked at his side. “Take away my feeling?”

“I didn’t take your feeling.”

“Then what’d you do?”

“I control emotions. I made you feel lethargic.”

“Holy shit, that’s so cool. What else can you make people feel?”

“Look, I’m not here to talk.”

“You know I came all the way up here from the Himalayas just to find you? Least you can do is chat with me.”

He didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead, hurtling through the trees like a bullet.

“I’m gonna talk anyway,” I sniffed. “I’m tired of thinking. I haven’t talked to anyone in months.”

Nothing.

“So your coven back there, pretty hardcore. I’ve seen harder.”

Nothing.

“It’s cold up here, I thought my toes were gonna snap off.”

Nothing.

“If you’re really just along to check my credibility, then we should make a bet. If we don’t find our family, your consolation prize will be a hundred — wait for it — _billion_ dollars. That’s how sure I am that they’re out there.”

“No, my consolation prize will be getting to see your face as you realize you were completely fucking _wrong,_ and there is nothing out there for _either_ of us — no family, no better life, _nothing.”_

I clicked my tongue. “Well look who’s chatty now.”

“Stop.”

“If you don’t wanna talk then don’t talk.”

“I was doing that but you wouldn’t—”

“Still talking.”

“I was trying—”

“Talking.”

He pressed his lips together and went silent.

I groaned. “Please talk to me, I’m so bored.”

Nothing. I huffed, stuck my chin out and mimicked him.


	2. the reticent empath

Changbin and I ran for miles, through forest, town and field, rain and snow and hail. We didn’t talk. Sometimes I would look at him — his honeyed skin and frowning lips — and wonder where the guy from my vision was hiding inside him.

I’d gleaned a lot from the vision that had brought me here. Where I was supposed to go — the shoreline on the sea of Okhotsk, and then to Windgrove Hospital in Newcastle Upon Tyne — and whom I was supposed to meet. Six vampires. I didn’t know anything about them except that they were kind and loving. And then there was Changbin. I was supposed to find him and lead him to his destiny.

I was supposed to fall in love with him.

I had felt it in the vision, my love for him, his for me. I felt his passion, depth, loyalty, determination. I loved him so much that I knew his name, his face, by the time the vision had ended.

So it stung that he didn’t want to talk to me, didn’t seem at all interested in me. I never should have got my hopes up. I never should have deluded myself into thinking he would know me as soon as he saw my face, that he would suddenly love me back, like he’d seen the same heavenly reality as I had.

I guess we were strangers. Don’t worry, I reasoned with myself, I’m only a little bit in love with this stranger. Not too much. Just a little.

“Felix,” Changbin said. It startled me. It was the first time he’d spoken in what felt like days, the first time he’d said my name at all. “We should hunt now. There won’t be another city for a while.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been around.”

“With your coven?”

“Yes.” He left it at that. He jumped onto a building, used it as a step-stone to a taller one. I followed, squinting at the sky. It was night, I hadn’t noticed.

He swung onto a pointed roof — wooden shingles cracked and slid off the edge. I grabbed a spire to steady myself. There were a few people below, walking the streets. I was too high up to smell them properly, but I could imagine the taste…

“I’ll take that one.” Changbin nodded at a constable whirling a baton below us. “Meet you wherever.”

“Um, okay.”

He jumped onto the next roof, followed the constable. I watched him go, and then jumped off the ledge, broke my fall on a staircase and landed on the ground. I was about to follow a human on the other side of the street, but a door opened from above. I shrank back into the dark.

A man came out onto the staircase, paused for a moment, as if he were listening for something. Maybe he had heard the shingles hitting the ground. He continued down the steps, out onto the sidewalk.

I shimmied along the fence, hopped over and peeked around the corner. The smell of his blood — rich and metallic — made my mouth water.

I rammed into him, forced him to the sidewalk. He shrieked as I dug my fangs into his neck. His future was pending until that second, then it faded into darkness, disappeared entirely.

I clawed at the wounds in his neck, covered them up. Wouldn’t want to ignite any more folktales. I dragged the body off the sidewalk, into the alley. There was a door — it opened to a small room, maybe the entrance to a basement. I chucked the body in and closed the door again.

I turned and Changbin was directly behind me. I flinched.

“You ready?” he said.

“Yeah, I was about to find you. How’d, uh, yours taste?”

“Fine.” He was about to take off but I caught his arm.

“Wait, I don’t like to run after I drink.”

He squinted down at my hand, up at my face. “Why?”

“Exertion expends the effects of human blood faster than needed.” Fei had told me that. Plus, Changbin might be more inclined to open up if we weren’t torpedoing through the brush, right? “Can we walk for a bit?”

He shrugged, eyes still narrowed. We ambled down the road, headed west, snow blowing into our eyes. There was a three foot buffer between us.

“Hey,” I said, “you’re older than me, right? Should I call you hyung or what?”

“Guess so.”

I waited to see if that was the end of his sentence, and then spoke again. “Travelling with a coven. What’s that like?”

He shrugged again. “It’s all I know.”

“They changed you?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty nasty to turn, right?”

“Mhm.”

“I’ve heard big covens like yours fight a lot. Is that true?”

His shoulders bobbed yet again.

I tried not to roll my eyes. Was this really our conversation? Me, surgically extracting each puny morsel of information, and him, plank-faced?

“Speaking of.” I put my fists up. “I will fight you for a verbal response, hyung, I’m not kidding.”

His face muscles flexed. Had I almost made him smile? “No.”

I dropped my fists and pouted at the street.

“I mean,” he said then, “if you tell me your story first…”

Suddenly my heart was beaming sunshine. “Oh? A change of tune?”

“You were good at, you know, not-talking, for the last couple days.”

“What flattery,” I cooed. He just grunted. “All right, would you laugh if I said I was from the circus?”

“I never laugh.”

I laughed. “Okay then. Back when I was a human, I was the live-in fortune teller at my parents’ circus. My father’s circus. He wasn’t… a good person, and my mom was gone, so I ran away.”

“Is Felix really your name?” He glanced at me for a second. “And why is your hair like that?”

“I bleached it because I make an amazing blonde, thank you muchly. And Father thought ‘Yongbok the Fortune Teller’ wouldn’t roll off the tongue like ‘Felix the Fortune Teller.’ Even after I escaped, it stuck. I think it makes me feel close to my gift. Besides, I never told Fei my birth name.”

“Who’s Fei?”

I knew I’d have to talk about her at some point, but it still felt hard to say the words. “My… creator. She changed me four years ago.”

“You’re in love with her?”

I nearly kecked in disgust. “What? Ew! No, it was a mentor-protege thing. She raised me, in a way. She taught me everything I know.”

“How long were you with her?

“Three years or so. Then I had the vision, and now I’m here.”

“You left your creator? Just for this?”

“Not just… this. She was a bit of a, well, fanatic. She had a grudge against the Volturi.” I didn’t mention how it was a bit more than just a grudge. She had been planning to amass a newborn army, to launch a strike against the Volturi. Attempting a coup was against the law, punishable by death, so telling the whole truth was out of the question. I immediately felt guilty for protecting her.

“What’d the Volturi do to her?” Changbin asked.

“She’s never met them, she just ‘disagrees with their fundamental beliefs.’ I’ve always thought there might be more to it than that.”

“You didn’t believe the same things she believed?”

“To be fair, I hate the Volturi as much as anybody else. I guess I… didn’t feel safe with her anymore. I felt expendable. At some point, I realized that she didn’t care about me. At least, not as much as she cared about other things.” Her blasted ‘life’s work’ and rage-blinded scheming. All those newborn vampires she would create in cold blood, her soldiers — I was the first, just a test trial to her. And look how great I turned out.

“Sounds like a psychopath,” he said.

“Yeah, I mean, I dunno. She wasn’t that bad.” Christ, stop defending her. “Anyway, I ran away — again — a year ago. Then I was on my own. I wandered the whole time — Laos, India, Burma, Malaysia. Then I had to make a decision. It wasn’t some serious life-or-death problem, it was simple, whether to turn left or right, this way or that. I chose left, and it brought on the vision. When I came to, I started running. That was a week ago. I’ve been on the move since.”

“Tell me more about the vision — the vampires we’re supposed to find.”

“We’re _definitely_ gonna find them. And there’s six in the coven. We’re the last pieces of the puzzle, there’s meant to be nine.”

“You mean eight? Two plus six?”

“Oh. Yeah. Right, eight.”

“How do your visions work?”

“I’m… not really sure, actually. They have to do with decision making — they shift when a decision is made. Sometimes the future comes to me, plays in my head, sometimes I have to check up on it.” Fei had said it might manifest in different ways because the future wasn’t linear, whatever that meant.

“So they’re unreliable,” he said.

“Um. Yeah. But at least they’re consistently unreliable. There’s that.”

He didn’t laugh. “What else did you see?”

“Where you were, the direction we were supposed to go after that — a hospital, one of them has a job there. I saw that we met, they took us in and we lived happily ever after.”

“Did you learn anything about them from the vision? Like, if any of them are vrykolakas? Might have to bail if they are, those guys are pricks.”

“Um, no, I think they’re civvies. And no names. Only yours, actually.”

“Why only mine?”

I swallowed. “The vision told me a lot about you.”

“What’d it say?”

“Um. Well, where to find you, what you looked like, your name, which is, like, strange, but not overly weird crazy strange, you know?”

“Why is your voice so high?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

I clapped my hands loudly. “Okay, now you tell your story.”

“It’s not some big secret, it’s just… I don’t think I’ve said it aloud before.” His arms were ramrod straight at his sides. He sucked in a breath. “It was pretty much a coincidence that I turned. I was out at the wrong time — I walked alone at night a lot — and Ganzorig’s coven found me. Turned me. I didn’t want to be alone, so I stayed with them.”

“What about before you were a vampire?”

His lips twitched up into a wounded little smile. “I had my mom, my sister. We weren’t, you know, rich, but we were happy. They were my world, they were everything to me.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re still home. I tried to go back once, to get closer than the mailbox, but the smell of their blood nearly… I nearly…” He shook his head. “That was twenty years ago. My sister has a family now.”

“Do they have any idea what happened to you?”

“I left a note. I’m okay, I love you, be safe, etcetera. I go back sometimes, leave money when I can. But Ganzorig’s coven, they’re… protective, in a bad way. They sent someone to follow me once. I didn’t realize in time. It turned into a fight, he almost killed me. Luckily, my powers make me convenient to keep around.”

“What do they make you do?”

“Knock people out, make them feel weak, submissive, ready to give in. Sometimes Ganzorig does business with other nomads, he trades members of our coven, but they… won’t always go without a fight.”

“I can’t believe you stayed with them for so long.”

“They’re my coven.”

I huffed, nose in the air. “Not anymore.”

He half-smiled, murmured under his breath, “If all goes according to plan.”

I tried to contain the frantic flapping butterflies in my stomach.

“Felix, do you hear that?” His lips came open, head canting as he listened.

“Um, no? What should I be hearing?”

He was quiet for a moment longer. Suddenly he whipped around, stared into the distance. His face folded into a look of fear.

“Hyung, what is it?”

“We have to go,” he said, “we have to run.”

Through the blur of snow and wind, miles away, a coven of vampires hurtled toward us.


	3. negotiating the pride

Changbin and I shot through the streets, not sure where we were going, only that we couldn’t stand still. Soon the city disappeared behind us, gave way to dark, snowy earth for miles around. The snarling, the galloping footsteps behind us, never abated, never got any farther away.

“What are they doing?” I panted. “Why are they chasing us?”

“I told you, they’re… protective. I thought they’d back off, let me disappear for a week or something, but the way we left must have been too suspicious. And now they’ve seen us just — taking a stroll, for god’s sake, and running away when we noticed them. But we couldn’t’ve stayed still, either!” He growled, frustrated. “Why didn’t you see them coming?”

“I-I don’t know, it doesn’t work like that.” My abilities had always been unpredictable. Fei hadn’t known how to train me — her gift was persuasion, it didn’t need honing.

I tried not to lose pace as I flipped through the possible futures. It all depended on what we chose to do within the next minutes. We could run until the sun came up, be caught, fight until I was dead and Changbin was back in their clutches — not necessarily in that order, but the options stayed the same no matter how I looked at it.

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” I said, talking to both him and myself.

“You’re the fortune teller, you tell me!”

“It’s not looking so hot right now. We need a plan.”

“Does fighting work?”

“Sometimes.”

“What about running, do we lose them?”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus Christ, a little more decisive please.”

“We need a _different_ plan, hyung. You’ve decided it’s gonna end in a fight or a chase.”

“How else could it end?!”

“Talking.”

“Didn’t Fei teach you that nomads don’t talk? If we stop, they’ll tear us up — tear you up — without a word.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be a civilized discussion. Maybe you can strike a deal. Bargain. Lie. Threaten. We gotta be clever about this, right? What do you think?”

His big idea was palpable, like a lightbulb flickering on above his head. As he decided on another route, the future shifted in my mind. Less violent options, still scrambled — it depended on the nomads’ actions now. We might make it to the coastline in one piece after all.

“Holy shit,” he said, “Felix, you’re amazing.”

My insides were suddenly jelly. “No, you are.”

“What’d you say?”

“Er, what?”

He moved on. “I have a plan. It’s gonna be hard to fend them off. Focus on protecting yourself. Stop in three, two — one.”

We both came to a stop, snow kicking up around us. As soon as we weren’t on the move, the coven caught up at lightning speed. Changbin hadn’t gotten a single word out before a nomad rammed him in the gut, sent them both hurtling across the tundra.

I caught a male’s punch mid-flight — he grabbed my face with his other hand and flung me to the ground. I rolled out of the way of his boot, but another nomad caught me, slammed my head against the ice.

 _“Stop!”_ Changbin’s growl echoed off the mountains. “Ganzorig, tell them to stop.”

Ganzorig was the leader. He wasn’t fighting me or Changbin — he stood and watched, arms crossed over his chest.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re more trouble than you’re worth, Changbin.”

“I’m leaving the coven.”

Ganzorig laughed, not amused. “Did you not think this through? I’ll just drag you back. Juwon will kill your nancy little friend.”

“Do _not_ threaten me. I know you, I know your skeletons, your mistakes. Just throw the bodies anywhere, hm? Forget to destroy the puncture wounds?” Changbin’s voice was low and biting. “I wonder what the Volturi would do if they found out about that.”

Ganzorig shot forward, punched Changbin hard in the face. He fell to the ground, and Ganzorig grabbed him by the hair, held him down. I snarled and struggled to help him — Juwon didn’t let me move an inch.

“You will _not_ rat us out,” Ganzorig shouted down at Changbin. “And don’t even think about using your powers.”

“Let me go in peace, don’t bother me, I won’t snitch. Simple as that. You’ll never see either of us again.”

Ganzorig’s decision teetered between conceding to our terms, killing Changbin on the spot, ordering Juwon to kill me. The futures swam in my head, dizzying.

“How do I know you won’t go to the Volturi?” he asked.

“It’s not exactly in my best interest. I have my own skeletons. I’d rather not kiss Aro’s feet for the rest of my life just so I can see you dead.”

“You won’t be executed.”

“I won’t have autonomy, either. I’ll be on their radar, forced to join them. That’s not me. Just let us go.”

He growled, shoved Changbin’s head down and backed away. “Show your face again and I’ll rip you to fucking pieces, got it?”

“I’m _never_ coming back. You ruined my life. I’ve wanted to kill you every single day for the last two decades.”

“It’s pathetic you’ve never tried.”

Changbin’s hands fisted. He was so close to attacking — a new swirl of futures crammed into my head.

“Hyung, don’t,” I whispered.

Juwon bashed my face into the ground. “Shut it. I could kill you right now, blondie.”

“Get off him,” Changbin snarled. Juwon just laughed, grabbed my wrist and twisted it back. I clenched my teeth against the sting, the feeling of my skin pulling too tight.

“We made a deal,” Changbin said. “He’s part of it.”

Ganzorig’s nostrils flared, eyes hard and cold. “Juwon, up. Leave the brat.”

Juwon got off me. I scrambled to my feet, shaking off the snow and dirt.

“What happened here, stays here,” Ganzorig spat. “Not a word, I don’t come for you, you don’t come for me.”

Changbin nodded tightly.

Ganzorig backed up, and his coven followed his every move. They darted away, disappeared into the churning white storm. I watched them go, grateful they weren’t the end of us.

I moved to Changbin’s side. “You okay?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You did good under the pressure. He was provoking you, but you didn’t lose it.”

Changbin shook his head slowly, red eyes blazing and aching. “It’s… completely pathetic. That I haven’t killed him. He took everything from me, and still, I followed his orders for so long… obedient… fucking stupid.”

It was so hard to pat his shoulder when all I wanted to do was give him the biggest hug. “Please tell me you won’t go back to them. You know, if the family…”

“Don’t worry about that.” He strode past me, westward, blinking the snowflakes out of his eyes. “Where’d your confidence go, fortune teller? I thought you trusted your vision.”

I caught up. “I do. Kind of. I mean… things can happen the way they’re supposed to, but different at the same time. I just — I care about you, hyung. I want you to feel like you have a family. I want you to know there are people who love you.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. Perhaps he could hear what I was implying. “Yeah, well. You already promised me a new life. You’ll make good on it. One way or another.”

I just nodded, wondering if he was implying something as well.

* * *

We kept running for miles upon miles. At some point the ground started to roll up and down under our feet. We dashed up a mountain and jumped, threw ourselves so high that we came out on top of the clouds. It was a relief to know that the sun was still there past the storm. I could feel my skin glitter in its light.

I turned, and Changbin was glittering, too. He was so beautiful, drawn in bold lines, eyelashes frozen, arms flapping gently as if he were really flying. I stared at him until the clouds ate me up again, a haze of grey and white, and then the earth reappeared beneath my feet.

I stared even as I plummeted — wild and willy-nilly because I was busy goggling at him. I landed on my ass and rolled down the mountain, snow jetting in all directions around me. I might have started an avalanche. I dug my way to the surface, and the two of us kept running.

It was a bit surreal when we found civilization again. It was daytime so we lurked in the shadows and down back alleys. The humans all around made it difficult for me to control myself. I suggested we hold hands just in case one of us lost it. He was _unsure_ of why that was _necessary,_ so I let it drop.

When the moon came up and humans went to sleep, I leapt off a rooftop and squinted into the distance mid-air. I could see the ocean from here, a little black line shimmering in the moonlight.

I landed on the street, and Changbin came after me. There wasn’t a human in sight, it looked like a ghost town. The snow still whipped around us, soaking my hair, clinging to my toes.

“We’re almost there,” I said. “Let’s keep running.”

“Felix, wait. We should find new clothes — shoes, too, my soles are wearing through. You’ve been barefoot this whole time.”

I looked at the ocean again. It was _so_ close.

“It’ll only take a second,” Changbin assured me. He darted to a shop window, peeked through it, and then moved on to the next. I did the same on the other side of the street. There was a butcher, a post office, a bookstore. The writing on the glass wasn’t in Russian anymore, French instead.

Finally, there was a shop with clothes inside. “Hyung!” I shouted, waving him over. We ducked into an alley, came out on the other side and scanned the back wall. There was a door — I turned the knob but it didn’t open.

“Right,” I muttered, “locks.”

Changbin cracked his knuckles and gestured for me to make room. He put his shoulder against the door, wound up, and bashed himself into it. The wood split and broke — Changbin screamed, staggering through a perfect cutout of his body.

I peeked through the door. He was brushing splinters of wood off himself.

“I meant to do that,” he said.

“Sure you did.” I hunched over to fit through the hole. “We’ll be outta here in good time anyway.”

We ventured deeper into the store, split up in the display room. There were mannequins standing in the dark, decked out in dresses and fur coats. I picked one up and went to find Changbin. He was lacing up a pair of leather boots.

I danced with the mannequin, spinning it around in a waltz. “Hyung, how’s our form?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “You know that’s a dummy, right?”

“I’m not being serious.”

“Oh. Um. It’s a little… stiff?”

I threw my head back and laughed. “That was a joke! You made a joke! You’re having fun!”

He just watched me, confused and just a bit entertained.

I twirled away and put the mannequin back where it belonged. I rummaged through the aisles till I found socks — I picked out a less-tattered wool shirt, too. The smell of wool always made me feel at ease. I marched back to the shelves of shoes and picked out a pair, rubbed the ice off my toes and put them on.

Changbin wandered up wearing a long-ass trench coat. “You ready?”

“New coat?”

“Might as well stock up.”

“I dunno if it’ll be the best for swimming.”

He blinked. “What?”

“There’s a channel between here and England, just twenty miles wide or so, not too big. You should pick something that won’t slow you down.”

He shrugged the trench coat off. “Yeah, sure, I’ll just — I’ll find something else.” He scampered away. I tried on a couple necklaces while I waited.

“Let’s get outta here,” he said, already moving toward the door. “The mannequins are freaking me out.”

I followed him out through the Changbin-shaped hole, and we took off down the back alley, heading southwest. We were out of the city within minutes. The coastline was far off but I felt like I was being beckoned, I felt like I was in the water already.

All that stood between us and our destiny was a quick dip.


	4. angelfish

The snow had stopped but the wind was strong, blowing at our backs. It was beginning to storm and thunder, and once we made it to the coast, the ocean was churning with white-crusted waves.

I skidded to a stop on the beach, squinting yonder. I could see the other side, distant and green against the horizon. My insides were all atwitter.

Changbin came up beside me. “That’s where we’re going?”

“It’s destiny, hyung.” I winked. “C’mon, haul ass.” I bounded down the beach and into the water. My shoes immediately flooded and I couldn’t have cared less. I dove below the surface, twirled, flapping my arms, and came up to shake my hair out of my face. I looked around but Changbin wasnt there.

He was still on the beach, water only up to his ankles.

“Hurry up!” I shouted.

He harrumphed and trudged toward me. I swam out farther, clawing the water out of the way.

“This is happening, hyung!” I whooped. “I will _show_ you I’m not full of shit, you just wait!”

I didn’t hear anything except a muffled gargling. I turned around — two disembodied arms were flailing in the air, frantically paddling back toward land. Changbin’s face breached the water — he gasped a breath and descended into a coughing fit.

“What the hell are you doing?” I called.

He stood where the water only reached his neck. He looked… embarrassed? He finished coughing before he spoke.

“I… can’t swim.”

_“You’re telling me this now?!”_

“I’m sorry! I thought I could force myself to learn on the spot.”

I pressed my hands into my eyes. What were we supposed to do now? Steal a fishing boat? Stow away on a cargo ship? Build a raft? The English coastline was so close I could _taste_ it, I could _feel_ the sand between my fingers.

I sighed a massive breath and waded toward him. “I’ll teach you.”

He gulped. “That’s not necessary — er, yet — lemme try a few more times.”

I backed up to give him space. He stepped in deeper, took his feet off the ground. And immediately went under, arms and legs thrashing, bubbles full of screams popping at the surface. I grabbed his hands, and he flung his arms around me, panting obscenities.

“Fine,” he practically shouted, “you can _coach_ me.”

“You’re gonna have to let go a bit.” Or he could hold me tighter, and we could float in circles for a while. Even mid-cling-for-dear-life, his arms were bearish and comfortable.

But he gripped my shoulders and pushed himself away. I held him up with my hands on either side of his waist.

“You know how I’m kicking my legs?” I said.

“I think.”

“Do that.”

He tried paddling under the water.

“Do the same with your arms — what I was doing before. Pretend you’re flying or something. If you go under, you just have to use the water to propel yourself up. Or I’ll save you if that doesn’t work. Wanna try?”

“Oh god — fine.”

I took my hands off his waist. He kicked his legs and flapped his arms in a frenzy. It was a bit pathetic. At least he wasn’t going under.

“Good.” I coughed to hide a laugh. “You know what, maybe doggy paddling would be a better fit. Hyung, look at me, do this.” I waggled my hands in the water. He tried to copy me — it worked a bit better, he even started to move.

“Holy shit,” he gasped, black bangs smothering his eyes. “Am I doing it?”

“You’re doing it! Plan back on track. You’re going the right way, too.”

“Jesus, I’m in too deep — Felix, don’t let me go under.”

“Hold up, hold up.” I stopped him — he clung onto my shoulders again. I brushed his hair out of his face and looked into his eyes. “‘Course I won’t.”

His lips turned up into a little smile. He cleared his throat and let go of me, started paddling again. I swam along with him. On occasion I looked back to make sure we were making headway. The French shore got smaller and smaller behind us but the English coastline never seemed to get any closer.

It started to rain, big drops splashing in the water all around us. Sometimes I would swim ahead, torpedoing thirty feet in a couple seconds, and look back to see Changbin still inching along.

“I can go faster,” he called.

“You don’t have to.”

“I can do it, I can do it.” He sucked in a breath and pitched into the water. He resurfaced a few feet closer and dove in again. Once he caught up to me, we swam together, not at top speed but fast enough. The shoreline waggled its finger, luring me forward.

When I ducked into the water, something orangey hovering in the depths caught my eye. I got curious. I dove down and waded toward it. A voice in my head told me not to be so easily distracted, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

Something caught my ankle. I shrieked a gush of bubbles and craned around. Changbin was there, a panicked look on his face. I pointed at the orange thing. He waved his arms toward the surface. I gestured for him to play along, pleading with my eyes, and headed down farther. He stalled for a second before following me, grabbing for my hand. Oh _now_ you want to hold hands.

Slowly the orange shape came into view. It was a squishy round bulb, fluctuating, propelling itself forward, with long tentacles and soft-looking plumes coming out the bottom. I didn’t know what to call it. My human life had been sheltered, landlocked, and Fei hadn’t bothered to teach me ‘unimportant’ things like sea creatures.

We went down and down and down till we were at the bottom, rock covered in colourful plants and squirming organisms. I went up to a spiky thing and looked closely, wondering if its pokers were sharp. I didn’t try to answer that question — maybe it had never been touched before, maybe a random boink would scare it.

Changbin was nearby, paddling stiffly as he stared at a white thing draped over a rock. I ribbed him and smiled. He smiled back, rueful. I kept exploring, watching stoic-looking fish prowl through the water, making aimless circles around the seaweed.

Then Changbin poked my arm. He pointed up toward a shadow — a school of fish, weaving nimbly through the water. We swam closer. The fish suddenly pivoted, raced around us — Changbin bumped into me, a startled bubble of laughter escaping his lips.

The fish were playing with us. They led us toward the surface, wheeled around and circled us. We twirled with them, moving our arms in broad strokes. I somersaulted and twisted around, and when I looked up, the fish were coming straight for us. They split down the middle at the last second and reunited once they were past.

Changbin suddenly took my hand and spun me around, like we were dancing. I ducked under his arm, and when I came back around, he put his other hand lightly on my waist.

The school of fish whizzed by again, startled us apart. A couple stragglers clipped me. Why were they in such a hurry?

Changbin’s hand shot out and grabbed my shirt. I spun around.

A massive ship was plowing silently through the water, straight toward us.

Shit.

I raked my arms through the water but I couldn’t move fast enough. Changbin yanked me out of the way just as it hit us. The momentum slammed us into the side of the ship, down its massive body, caught in its wake.

Grasping for something to hold on to, trying to see through the chaos around me, only a portion of my brain noticed the crazy hurricane of bubbles at the end of the hull.

The propeller.

Bigger shit.

I scraped at the side of the ship, grabbing at anything I could reach — it all broke off. The vortex only got closer and closer, hulking, sucking water, us, everything into its spinning blades.

Finally, my hand caught onto something — a bed of barnacles. I grabbed desperately for Changbin, caught his wrist. He reached for me with his other hand but another surge of water sent him whirling. The force of it ripped the barnacles off the ship’s body, sent us both into the undertow. I couldn’t see anything; I couldn’t tell which way was up — the violent water was blinding and the motor blocked out all sound.

Something big, sharp, moving fast, rammed into my gut, ripped our hands apart. The blade flung me around, sent me wheeling through the water. I flapped my arms, craned around, searching for Changbin. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t see anything but darkness, I was in so deep.

I paddled, frantic, toward the surface, shot up through the water and gasped. It was storming even harder than before, rain pouring down on my head, water rolling in huge waves. I couldn’t make out where the ship had gone — everything was grey and wet, crashing down around me.

“Hyung! Changbin! _Changbin!”_

No answer. I saw a light out of the corner of my eye — a lighthouse. I called his name into the distance again. Still no answer.

I turned back toward the lighthouse. Would he see it, too? Would he know to go to it? I had to trust him, even if he was practically blind out there, no idea whether I was running to meet him or waiting in the channel.

I dove into the water, swam toward the light, until the pebbled ground crept up under my feet. I crawled onto the beach, breathing hard, adjusting to the surface world. My clothes were heavy on my body.

I concentrated on the future, sifting through the possibilities. Maybe I could suss out where Changbin was if I knew where we were going to meet. It was all in scattered pieces, random flashes of what was to come. Thankfully the ultimate future was still on track. Our family, our destiny, waited for us.

But when Changbin appeared in my vision, it wasn’t on the beach. It was on the ship.

I spun around and scanned the channel, hoping I could see better from land. It was useless. The ship was gone.

I sighed, hauled myself to my feet and started north. Even though the ship could have been going the opposite direction, Changbin had to remember where we were supposed to meet our family. Maybe he would know to meet me there.

So I was back where I started. A desperate sprint across a landmass to find Changbin. It was easy to get frustrated — I was going hundreds of miles per hour but it _wasn’t fucking fast enough._ It was moot to worry, of course — one way or another, we would find each other in the future. I clung to the blurry picture in my head like it was his gentle, veiny hand.

I thought about him to pass the time, the way we were touching before that stupid ship separated us. If I hadn’t insisted on exploring, maybe we would still be together. Maybe we would already be on our way to meet our family.

That got me thinking about the family. There was so much the vision hadn’t told me about them. How old were they — thousands of years or a couple decades? Was there a leader? Did they have gifts? Were they created for a specific purpose?

Were they anything like Fei? Like Ganzorig’s coven, for that matter? Did they operate as an ecosystem or a tyranny? I couldn’t imagine myself in a hierarchy, aware of my status as less or more important. Or maybe there was a comfort to it. I’d have to ask Changbin.

I was replaying our underwater waltz in my head when my vision clouded and my feet stumbled. I’d been running nonstop. The city was near, the dock was somewhere in the city, and the ship was at the dock — Changbin was at the dock.

I shook my head. I was facedown in a bush. I climbed out and kept going the way I had been, following the faint sound of motors, smoke billowing out of factory chimneys.

The forest became farmland and farmland became city. I snuck through alleyways, staying out of sight. It was bustling on the road and sidewalk, constables on horses directing automobiles and bicycles through a deathtrap of an intersection. According to a clocktower opposite my hiding spot, it was the end of the workday.

I approached the mouth of the alley, looked out onto the sidewalk. People dressed in frilly jackets and towering top hats walked by, unwitting. They smelled delectable.

I dropped into a crouch and waited. This could take a while. I couldn’t strike until all eyes were turned, until someone got close enough to snatch.

It didn’t take as long as I’d expected. A human wearing a fur coat and a fedora ducked into the alley, rummaging around in his pocket. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and popped one between his lips.

I pounced, dragged him silently into the shadows, covering his mouth with my hand. He was a squirmy one, but he slackened as I drained him. Gah. Smoker’s blood.

I clawed the evidence out of his neck, laid the body at the very end of the alley, the dankest corner, and pulled off his fur coat. Poor little critter, I thought, killed and skinned only to hang off a human’s shoulders. I took his shoes and socks, too, and his hat as a final touch. Wasn’t like he’d be needing them.

I slipped out onto the street, inserted myself into the foot traffic. The sky was cloudy, dark, no sun — thank god. Fedora tipped down over my face, coat covering my wet clothes, I wasn’t the most conspicuous person on the block. I scanned the folks standing outside the storefronts and played a game of eeny-meeny-miny-moe.

I went up to a lady, made sure to keep a safe distance, and smiled with my lips closed, squinting to hide my red eyes.

“G’day, I’m looking for the dockyards — any idea where I could find them?”

She looked confused. She opened her mouth and replied in a language I didn’t understand. Right. I suppose it was time for a game of charades.

I tried to gesticulate water, and then a boat. She watched, eyebrows pinched together, and mimicked me, not getting it at all.

“Ah ah ah!” she finally exclaimed. She mimed a sidestroke and cast off a fishing rod. Close enough. I tapped my nose, nodded my head. She pointed down the street, gestured to make a right turn. I thanked her profusely and hurried down the sidewalk, swinging my arms. I didn’t care if I was being conspicuous — Changbin was down the street and to the right, I _knew_ it.

But when I reached the corner, all I found was more roads, more city. No dockyards, no ships, no Changbin — but there did happen to be a bait and tackle shop. In hindsight, the lady and I had been barrelling toward a misunderstanding. I checked up on the futures — all were still intact, unchanged. Jesus Christ, what was I supposed to do next? How was I supposed to make the leap from now to our fate?

I shut my eyes and rubbed my nose. Desperate times and desperate measures and all that. I walked up to a building with a column, rounded it and scaled toward the overhang. I hauled myself onto the roof, checking over my shoulder for onlookers. All clear.

I scanned the cityscape. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The buildings were tall and painted with dull colours, the sidewalks were like rivers unto themselves, the current of walkers moving in navy and peach and mauve waves. There were so many people, so much to look at, businesses and signs and—

Holy shit. There it was. A long, snaking river leading into the distance. There had to be a dock somewhere along the inlet, Changbin had to be there, waiting for me.

But that wasn’t all I saw. A building to the northwest, brick walls, a yard in the shape of a crescent, a sign that said…

Windgrove Hospital.

In a split second, I knew the truth. This was exactly where we needed to be.


	5. rose petals and brass knuckles

It was maddening that I couldn’t go to Windgrove Hospital right away. It held the answers to our destiny — it was where my vision had been leading me since the very beginning. But Changbin was my goal now, he must have been waiting for me. I hated to think of him alone and uncertain.

I leapt to the roof of a tavern, then down into a backstreet. I had to slow to a walk as I slid onto the sidewalk. That was maddening, too — I could hear the water getting closer. I jay-walked and cut people off, slipped across back alleys and climbed over fences.

I just about jumped for joy when I reached the river. I followed it east, listening to the beginnings of human feet in heavy boots.

Men were lumbering around on deck, tying the ship to the pier, shouting ‘ay’ and ‘oi’ and ‘lads.’ I ducked behind a big wooden box, crawled to the edge of the dock and threw myself onto the ship. I prowled the cargo, on the lookout for sailors, and whispered Changbin’s name. No reply.

There was a hatch in the floor of the deck — I flung it open and slid through. A staircase led deeper into the ship. I called for Changbin again. Nothing. The stairs forked off into a hallway dotted with doors to either side. I sneaked to the end, found it circled the ship, and followed it to the back.

Another flight of stairs. I descended slowly, wary. I ended up in a dark room stacked with big wooden crates, imports and exports. I whispered Changbin’s name.

He burst out of a box in front of me. I screamed, and he screamed because I screamed.

“Sweet mother of god!”

“Felix!” He stumbled out of the crate and threw his arms around me. I hugged him tight, my face a gigantic toothy grin.

He realized what we were doing and let go of me, crossing his arms. “Where the hell did you go?”

“I went to the lighthouse — where did you go?”

“I saw the boat was going to Newcastle, I thought you’d see it, too. What lighthouse?”

“The one on shore. How’d you get in a box?”

“Long story. Why are you wearing a raccoon pelt?”

“I took it off a corpse. Never mind, never mind, I have to tell you something ama—”

A voice shouted, nearing the cargo hold. We spun in panicked circles, clambered into Changbin’s crate and yanked the cover back on. We were sitting in a nest of wood packaging curls and cans of tomatoes. A heavy door opened, and sailors flooded into the room, blabbering.

“Should we make a run for it?” I asked.

“It’s pretty tight.” Changbin was peeking out a split in the wood. “Let’s wait until their numbers thin.”

“You’ll never guess what I found — the hospital, Windgrove Hospital, it’s across the river. I know _exactly_ where to go.”

“Holy shit, you’re sure?”

“One hundred percent. I made you a promise — I’m not gonna let you down.”

“You’re fucking amazing.”

A pair of boots clomped up to the crate. I held my breath. One side pitched up — our arms shot out to steady ourselves.

The human outside shouted something, and then another one walked up and lifted the other side of the crate. We were on a slant, trying not to tumble around, not to give ourselves away. They heaved us out the door, off the ship and onto the dock. It was a steep drop into the River Tyne over the edge.

“Of all the fucking boxes to move,” Changbin whispered.

“Hyung, do that thing again — make them pass out.”

He shut his eyes and concentrated. The crate abruptly lurched to the side — he pitched forward, caught himself with his hands to either side of my head. Our faces were inches apart. My eyes dropped to his lips, and his flitted down to mine.

“Er,” I said.

He moved back and closed his eyes again. It was a few seconds before the humans stuttered and slowed. One of them started talking, but his voice tapered out, winded. Both of the men collapsed and our crate fell with them, crashed onto the ground and rolled over. I landed on my head.

Changbin pushed his hands against the crate — it popped off its lid and the cans dropped out. We made our escape, beetled down the dock under its cover.

The universe wasn’t letting us catch our breath — a group of humans were about to round the corner.

“Shit,” he hissed. “What do we do?”

“I have an idea but you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just do it!”

I threw my weight to the side. We flipped upside-down and plummeted off the dock — the crate exploded into planks around us as we plunged into the river. We swam through the thick, stagnant water, away from the docks.

Changbin breached the surface and spat the dirty water out of his mouth. “Felix! Gross! Fuck!”

“Hyung, look!” I pointed at a rowboat sitting idle in the water. We swam toward it, climbed in. There were oars stowed away under the seats — we grabbed one each and laboured the boat to a start, inching through the water.

“Where to now?” he coughed.

“Up the river, then north — keep at it.” The sailors’ voices were waning behind us. They were just finding their mates on the dock, flaccid and crate-less.

Changbin was rowing, eyes straight forward. I couldn’t believe I was so ecstatic to see such a grumpy face.

I reached over and poked him. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I’m happy to see you. I dunno how long I was running but I was worried the whole time.”

“Yeah, well, so was I.”

My heart burst into flames. “You were worried about me?”

“I was worried the plan-future-vision-whatever got fucked up when we were separated. Maybe I made a mistake not staying where I was, and maybe this whole damn thing was a huge failure and a waste of my time.” He heaved a breath and rolled his eyes back into his head. “I might have been worried about you, too.”

“And…?”

He glowered.

I sighed. “Fine, we don’t have to talk about it. Tell me how you got yourself into a box instead.”

“I was just tryna find a hiding spot, but those matelots took it down to the cargo hold. They were just standing around smoking cigarettes till we docked — goddamn lucky I didn’t drain every last one of ‘em.”

“You looked like a life-sized jack-in-the-box, scared the shit outta me.”

“Your face was funny.”

I took my shot. “Your face is pretty.”

He didn’t look at me. His cheeks turned light red.

“How in the hell are you blushing right now?”

“I might’ve drank a sailor or two.” He shrugged innocently.

I poked him again. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I like you.”

He very carefully lifted the oar out of the water, set it in the boat, and shifted around to face me. “Then kiss me, fortune teller.”

I dropped my oar, took his face in my hands and kissed him. He flicked the soggy fedora off my head, pulled me in by my collar. He tasted like rose petals and brass knuckles. And murky river water.

I moved closer, but the boat teetered, off balance with both of us on one end. I fell back and tried to steady it. I didn’t feel like taking another swim for a solid few years.

Changbin smirked to himself, picked up an oar and started rowing again. I did the same. My brain was buzzing with happiness. It all seemed to be falling into place.

“Talk to me,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’m an idiot for this.”

“For what?”

“Liking you.”

I frowned down at the water. “How come?”

“You’re an unreliable prophet — practically a goddamn stranger. None of this was supposed to happen.”

“It doesn’t _have_ to happen.” I was nibbling on my lip, trying not to sound insecure. “It’s not like it’s written in stone.”

“Isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Wasn’t it a part of your vision? That we would…?”

“How did you know?”

“I guessed. You gave me the clues, Felix. Besides, I’m an empath, I don’t just _control_ emotions, I _feel_ them. Since the first time I met you, all I’ve felt is your love.”

“Oh. Well. That’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Nah.” He still didn’t meet my eyes. “It’s sweet.”

We berthed the rowboat at a wooden pier that ran up onto a beach. A path leading north shepherded us to Westgate Road. There were a few people on the sidewalk, but not so many that we had to keep our heads down.

We walked for blocks upon blocks until Windgrove Hospital appeared before us. We turned into a crescent-shaped yard. The building was long, built with brick, and three or four storeys tall.

The inside was bustling with doctors and nurses, patients on gurneys and in wheelchairs, little kids coughing with their parents standing over them. I held my breath, banishing the smell of their blood. The front desk had a queue — Changbin and I had to wait for what felt like forever.

Finally we reached the front desk and — shit — I hadn’t thought of this. We’d have to speak English to ask for the doc, and the only words I had picked up from my limited time on a British pier were ‘ay,’ ‘oi’ and ‘lads.’

But Changbin opened his mouth and spoke in fluent English. I raised my eyebrows at him. Recognition lit up the nurse’s expression — she replied. The only word I understood was ‘Bang.’ Was our brother’s surname Bang?

Changbin looked surprised for a second, and then spoke again. The nurse pointed down the hall. Her smile was genuine, like we meant something to her. Changbin bowed a bit and pulled me toward the hallway.

“I didn’t know you spoke English,” I said.

“There was a guy from America in my… old coven. He taught me.”

“What were you saying to her?”

“I said we were looking for a doctor, and she just rattled off a name. Dr. Bang. It’s probably him — how many Korean doctors do they have in this place? She asked if we were his nephews, I said yes, and she gave me directions to his office, it’s on the third floor.”

“Did you see how she was looking at us?”

“I did — I felt her respect. Maybe this Dr. Bang is a good guy.”

“He has to be. He’s working as a _doctor._ Imagine all the blood he has to resist.”

“Are you sure he _does_ resist it? This place is kinda like the ultimate feeding ground, right? Oh, speaking of, remember not to breathe once we’re in the elevator.”

“In the what?”

Changbin pressed a button, and — before my very eyes — the wall _opened up_ to reveal a smaller room. There was a human inside but he wasn’t a doctor.

Changbin walked forward, pulling me with him, and spoke briefly to the human in a little blue and red hat. The man nodded, closed the doors and cranked a lever back and forth.

And then the room _moved._

I grabbed Changbin’s arm. “Holy shit! Jesus Christ! Hyung, the room is moving!”

He was trying not to laugh. “Yeah, it’s an elevator.”

“What is it doing to us?!”

“Felix, you’re overreacting.”

“Oh big talk for mister doggy paddle.”

He smirked and waved me away. The elevator wizard was eyeballing us.

The wall opened again, and we turned into the hallway, checking the names on the doors till we found the last one. The name on it was written on a tacked-up piece of paper instead of an engraved nameplate.

“This is it,” Changbin murmured. “Chan Bang, M.D.”

“Funny, it’s backward.” I turned the knob and let us in.

The room was small and cluttered, files and pencils and random medical doodads all over the desk. And he wasn’t in it. He had been recently — I could smell him.

“Now we wait, I guess,” said Changbin.

“I wanna snoop.”

“Felix, don’t snoop.”

“What if there’s a picture of the family or something?” I scanned the walls but all there was to see was a dumb doctorate in a frame.

“C’mon, it’s an invasion of privacy and — ooh, look, a paddle ball.” He picked up a flat piece of wood with a ball hanging off it and swung it around.

I rounded the desk, eyes sweeping the strewn files. Though I couldn’t understand them, I gathered that the doc was busy, lined up with surgeries and evaluations for hours. There was a ticking clock, too, a pretty gold pattern, and when I looked at the back, it was engraved with the numbers 1826. So he _was_ an old vampire, one hundred years at least. Or maybe he got it at a pawn shop.

I was about to start rifling through his drawers, but a pair of footsteps approached the door. There was no heartbeat to accompany them. Changbin and I both froze.

It was a short second of silence, and then the footsteps pivoted and walked away. Changbin put the paddle ball down and opened the door — I craned to look over his shoulder. A door swung shut at the other end of the hallway.

“Oh my god,” I gawked, “that had to be him, right? Why’d he leave?”

“I dunno — c’mon, we can’t lose him.”

We raced down the hallway. The door led to a staircase — we darted to the bottom, peeked out into the entrance. Bang Chan was talking to the nurse at the front desk. He had curly black hair and wore a white lab coat.

He patted the desk, waved and walked out the front doors. We had to follow at a human pace, weaving through the patients. By the time we got outside, he was halfway across the hospital grounds and walking fast. He turned onto Westgate road. The sidewalks were busy — humans strolling in the falling darkness.

“Should I yell at him to stop?” I asked.

“No, Felix, don’t spook him.”

“Then how are we gonna get him to talk to us?”

“We just have to follow him till we’re somewhere more… private.”

I looked around at the people with their noses skyward, the ones averting their eyes. They were already very aware of us — screaming probably wouldn’t help that.

“He’s turning, he’s turning,” Changbin said. Bang Chan was across the road, climbing the steps into a building, a hotel. It was six storeys, made of brownish brick, with fancy carvings above and below the tall windows. Royal Station Hotel.

“Is he leading us somewhere we can talk?” I beamed at the thought.

Changbin’s eyes were narrowed. “It could be a trap. But… we can’t give up now.”

“Of course not.” I was still grinning.

We hopped up the steps and opened the double doors. The foyer was grand, a big sparkly chandelier, a deep blue rug that covered every inch of floor. Bang Chan was waiting for the elevator. I could finally see his face — half of it, at least. He had a dimple in the middle of his cheek and pretty, full lips. His expression was anxious.

The doors opened and he got on. We practically sprinted toward it.

Suddenly there was a human blocking us, hands splayed in front of our faces. The elevator doors closed behind him.

The human spoke sharply, gestured toward the receptionist’s desk. Changbin replied, face innocent, pointing at the elevator. The concierge spoke again — all I could make out was ‘Bak.’ There must have been a Bak in our family.

Changbin’s last response was pleading. The concierge put on a forced smile, turned and walked at a brisk pace toward the front desk. Changbin and I followed.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“We can’t see them without the go-ahead,” Changbin said back. “‘Mr. Bak’ specifically said not to let anyone up. He’s gonna call their suite now.”

The concierge rounded the desk, held a little black funnel to his ear and fingered a circular thing on the base. I craned my neck to watch. Fei had told me about telephones but I’d never seen one in real life before.

It rang loudly — once, twice, thrice, four times, five. The concierge hung up on the ninth and spoke brusquely. Changbin replied, and I could guess from his gesticulation that he was asking to call again.

I heard a ding behind us — the elevator doors opened, two guys walked out into the foyer. One was tall, hair shiny black, hanging down below his ears. The other had an expression sculpted from stone and a killer jawline. They didn’t give us a glance as they crossed the room and left through the double doors.

Changbin was looking, too, wide-eyed. He said something brief to the concierge and grabbed my hand. We booked it through the foyer, out into the night.


	6. destiny

By the time Changbin and I got out onto the sidewalk, the two men were gone — up and vanished like magic. What the hell? Could they really have run away with all the human witnesses? Were they that afraid of us?

“I smell them,” Changbin said. “They went that way, go!”

We charged down the sidewalk, shoving past the crowds. I could smell them, too, when I focussed. In a soup pot of human scents, a vampire’s was obvious.

We followed their trail down the street, through buildings with big archways and past a grand church. It led us down another, less crowded street, but when we got to the intersection, the trail split off into two. One led along the river, the other over a bridge.

“Which do we follow?” Changbin asked, looking both ways.

“Maybe we should split up.”

“Yeah, that couldn’t possibly end in disaster.”

“We’ll run for twenty minutes and meet back at the hotel. I’ll keep an eye on your futures, too. We just need to get close enough to explain ourselves.”

He was fidgety. I took his hand and traced a little heart in his palm. “You go that way, I’ll go this way, okay?”

He huffed out a breath. “Fine.” He got up on his tiptoes to kiss me. My eyes fluttered closed, didn’t open, even after he pulled away, raced over the bridge and disappeared. I palmed my temple and headed the other way.

I followed the scent, flew down the road till the river snaked along at my side. The sun was gone, the stars were out, only the occasional sound of engines backfiring to break the silence.

Suddenly there was a figure in front of me. I stopped a good thirty yards away, careful not to spook him. Fei had taught me to approach unknown vampires with extreme caution, especially when alone. His eyes were long and narrow, hair blowing in the soft wind, and his expression was unsettling and unreadable.

“I can explain myself,” I said.

He pivoted and shot down the road, out of sight in a split second. I took off after him. His scent weaved in jerks and swerves across the road — I nearly barrelled into a tree. He led me onto another bridge over the river.

Then the trail disappeared completely. Where had he gone? Straight up? I sniffed the support cables in case he was hiding in the mechanisms.

Something flitted past me, just a breeze in my hair — I chased after it. I could see his back for a second, and then he was too far ahead. It wasn’t the same scent as before. How many were following me? My eyes didn’t have any trouble in the dark, but this guy was strong and fast — much faster than me.

“I need to talk to you!” I yelled into the night. “You’re not in any danger!” There was no answer.

The road twisted and turned, and a third scent was added to the mix. They turned me around, led me through the bushes, and finally forked off in three separate directions. _Goddamnit._ I only ever saw the flick of a shoe, the glint of an eye, and then they were gone, always out of my reach.

A vision hit me in an instant, blinded me and bound my feet together. Changbin, unwitting, surrounded and attacked by our “family.” He was on a small road I didn’t recognize, a skirt of trees to either side. He was in danger.

I came to, panting, facedown on the ground.

_“Changbin!”_

I leapt to my feet and catapulted back the way I’d come. It was only a second before I could hear them behind me. _They_ were chasing _me_ now — three of them, far behind but gaining quickly.

I found the intersection where we had split up, picked up his trail and followed it, using my hands to go faster, desperate to reach him. I kept my eyes straight forward as the buildings and trees whizzed past me in a blur.

Dozens of yards ahead, Changbin burst out of the trees, stopped in the middle of the street, turning in circles. I saw flashes of hands and faces whipping through the trees to either side, straight toward him. My vision was about to come to reality.

Our eyes only met for a second before I rammed into him and sent us both wheeling through the air. Another body flew past us a millisecond later and hurtled into the trees.

We crashed to the road, rolled and came to a stop, Changbin over top of me.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “what happened?”

“They were gonna attack you, I saw it! They’re coming, we need to—”

A flash and Changbin was gone. He flipped through the air, slammed to the ground, and a vampire with pitch black hair and scars all over his face held him down, crossed his wrists behind his back.

I sprang forward and grabbed the stranger, yanked him away from Changbin, trying to kick his knees out. He kicked mine first, whirled around and punched me in the face. I stumbled back, caught his fist before he could hit me again. Changbin was about to help but the vampire twisted my arms around, kicked Changbin in the face and landed again, yanking me closer.

“You shouldn’t have come for us,” he said, a deadly-low growl.

“H-how did you know—”

He ducked down just as something whammed into the back of my head. I toppled over him and fell hard to the road. When I craned my head back, I saw someone had thrown a blasted tree at me. Then there was another vampire in front of me — brown hair, lovely and violent eyes.

He was about to grab me when Changbin tackled him. They hit the ground and traded punches, growling and snarling.

I couldn’t help him. A vampire grabbed my ankles and another had my wrists. They were all around, three more approaching from the trees. The violent one took Changbin by the scruff of his neck and held him down. They had us.

And then a motor, down the road, just around the bend. We froze, all eight of us.

Changbin kicked the violent one’s foot out from under him, slammed him to the ground. I jerked my legs inward and thrust them out again, kicked the scarred one in the face. I flung the one who had my wrists over my head — he flipped and landed on his haunches. It was Bang Chan. He stared back at me, eyes contrite.

“Get off the road,” another said — a beautiful, cutting voice. “There’s no time.”

Synchronized, like six reflections of the same person, they darted into the trees, gone in a second. I crawled over to Changbin and yanked him up. We threw ourselves into the bushes just as the automobile came around the bend. We watched it drive away, panting.

“What the hell do we do now?” Changbin said.

“They have to be around here somewhere, let’s just yell.”

“Do it quick, they’re gonna jump outta nowhere and beat our asses again.”

“We did, er, okay.”

“Passable. I didn’t think they’d be good fighters, you know, being civvies and all.”

“We can hear you.”

We both flinched and looked up. A pair of glowing gold — not red? — eyes were looking down at us, crouching in the tree above our heads.

An arm wrapped around my neck, held me in a headlock. Another did the same to Changbin. I kicked my legs — the one in the tree dropped to pin them down.

Three more stepped through the bushes and stood over us. Bang Chan in the middle, the unreadable one to his right and the scar-faced one to his left.

“We’re sorry for fighting,” Bang Chan said. “We mean you no harm.”

“We’re not here to hurt you, either,” said Changbin.

“Can we trust them?” the one on Bang Chan’s right said.

“He’s telling the truth,” the one on his left said shortly. He was staring at us, eyes hostile, aloof.

“Explain your intentions,” Bang Chan said.

“They can’t do it here,” the scarred one said. “There’s a party of drunkards headed this way — more cars, too.”

Bang Chan didn’t reply, but the scarred one spoke again as if he did.

“Why would we do that? They’re nomads — he may be telling the truth but we shouldn’t trust them.”

“Chan, don’t go soft with them just because they’re young,” the guy with his arm around my neck said. He was the one with the beautiful voice.

“They’re not gonna hurt us, sweetheart. If they wanted to, they would have already. They abstained from dozens of humans on the walk back from Windgrove. They obviously have a story to tell, and the best place to do that is somewhere without interruptions. All in favour?”

Four hands came up, and the last two a second later, grudging. I put my hand up, too.

They released us and we got to our feet. I immediately clung onto Changbin’s hand.

The one who had been restraining him bumped his shoulder as he passed. “Try anything and I’ll kill you both.”

“Seungmin, calm,” said Bang Chan. He traded looks between our eyes. “Tell me your names.”

We introduced ourselves. He smiled. It made me feel calm, despite everything.

“I’m Chan. You’ll get the chance to explain yourselves, I promise. Now, follow us.”

* * *

The six led us down the road, back toward the city. Chan and his mate ran in front, Seungmin and the tall one flanking us. The scarred one and the quiet one were on our tails.

“We didn’t introduce ourselves,” the tall one said. “My name’s Hyunjin. And for the record, I never laid a finger on either of you.” He stuck his thumb over his shoulder. “He did, on the other hand. That’s Jisung. Next to him is Jeongin. Chan and Haseong in front, and on your left you have Seungmin.”

“You don’t have to play peace-maker, you know,” Jeongin said.

“I’m not! I wanna be friendly. We sorta jumped the gun back there.”

“We couldn’t take any chances, Hyunjinnie,” Seungmin said, “especially after what happened in Paraguay.”

“Even though we never showed any signs of aggression?” Changbin said.

“Right, all you did was break into Chan’s office, rummage through his stuff and follow him home.”

“Not aggressively.”

Seungmin growled and Changbin growled back.

“Enough,” Haseong said. “It’s been a long night. I’m sure it’s been longer for you two, but you have to understand, we were acting in self-defence. We’ve been visited by nomads less… civilized than you in the past.”

“We shouldn’t have been snooping in your office,” I said. “Chan hyung, I swear, I only admired your doctorate and glanced at your papers. And Changbin hyung played with your paddle ball.”

“It’s all right,” said Chan. “I wish I could’ve been more hospitable back there. I didn’t recognize you, I acted on instinct. You must know how risky nomads can be. We didn’t know your ages, skill levels, power sets.”

“No, we understand,” Changbin said. “You’re right to be cautious. I’m an empath, Felix is a precognitive.”

“Jisung is a mindreader,” Hyunjin said matter-of-factly. “That’s why he’s glaring at you right now.”

“If you’re a mindreader, why can’t you see why we’re here?” I looked back at him. I had thought him some sort of grizzled baddie at first glance, but now I realized the scars on his face were of the acne kind. He seemed younger than I was, now that I really looked at him.

“You want me to read a whole explanation from a single train of thought?” He scoffed. “Maybe if you’d been thinking anything more complex than ‘must find them, must find family’ I would’ve been able to clear this up faster.”

“Should I just think the story, then? Give it to you in one go?”

“No fair,” said Hyunjin, “I wanna hear it, too.”

“We should all hear it for ourselves,” Chan said. “Everyone be careful.”

They came to a stop at the end of the road — I bumped into Haseong’s back. He and Chan peeked around the corner and waved for us to follow. We headed out into the crowd.

“Split up,” Chan said then. “We’ll meet you up there.”

Chan, Jeongin, Jisung and Seungmin veered off and headed another way. We were headed toward the front doors of the Royal Station Hotel.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“The concierge didn’t see them leave.” Haseong held the door open for us. “They’re going in through the courtyard out back.”

We walked into the foyer. The concierge was immediately on our asses. He spoke to Haseong, eyes flitting in my and Changbin’s direction.

Changbin translated for me, whispering. “The concierge is saying we were acting suspicious earlier, and that Haseong should reconsider letting us in. Now Haseong’s telling him that they know us.” He laughed. “‘You should have called up.’”

The concierge straightened his lapels and walked away.

Haseong hit the elevator button. “I assume you thought to hide your eyes while you were talking to him earlier.”

“Of course,” I said, though I couldn’t quite remember if I had or not.

“Like he would catch that,” Hyunjin scoffed. “He’s an idiot — didn’t even notice when Seungmin and I swiped his hat.”

The wall opened up and we stepped in. It wasn’t very big — the four of us plus the operator was a tight fit. Hyunjin and Haseong stood between us and the human.

The elevator started moving. I squeezed Changbin’s arm. He put his hand over mine and patted gently.

“How long have you two been together?” Hyunjin asked, smiling at us.

“Er. An afternoon.” Changbin cleared his throat. “How long have you been with Seungmin?”

Hyunjin’s smile fell away. He looked down. “I’m not with him.”

“Really? You felt love — strong love — when he called you a nickname back th—” I kicked Changbin’s ankle, telling him to shut up. _“Ow.”_

Haseong rubbed his face. “Hyunjin, I truly try my hardest to stay out of your business, but I’m at my wits’ end here.”

“W-what?”

“Whatever has been happening between you and Seungmin — it can’t go any further.”

“There’s nothing happening with us, I swear to God!”

“Do you think me that much of an idiot?”

“I… I still love Jeongin.”

“I don’t care whom you love — figure your shit out. You will not hurt my son, understood?”

Hyunjin swallowed and murmured a yessir.

Changbin and I were watching, absorbed.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” Haseong said to us, staring ahead, businesslike. “Familial difficulties.”

The doors opened into a hallway, sconces along the walls, carpets deep blue. Haseong led the way out of the elevator and down the hall. We passed door after door until he pulled a key out of his pocket and let us into suite 408.

The room inside had high ceilings and windows in the back wall above a fancy sofa. The bed was made but pillows were everywhere, strewn around post-battle. Chan was pacing the room, Seungmin was in the desk chair, and Jisung and Jeongin were on the couch, legs folded up in front of them.

Chan gestured to the foot of the bed. “Boys, take a seat.”

Changbin and I sat next to each other. Chan and Haseong stood in front of the hulking mirror, facing us.

“You wanted to explain,” Haseong said. “Explain.”

We traded looks.

I cleared my throat. “I guess it starts with me. You already know I’m a precognitive — I had a vision. It told me that I had a family I hadn’t met yet. You’re our family. I saw the future and we were all together. First I found Changbin, and then we came to find you guys.”

“Jisung?” said Chan.

He was still glowering at me. He let up and looked at Chan. “He’s telling the truth.”

“How accurate are these visions?” Seungmin asked.

“Pretty accurate,” I said. Changbin snorted.

“Have you been out on your own for very long?” Chan asked.

“I was turned four years ago,” I said. “I travelled with my creator for a while, but I went out on my own last year.”

“I was turned twenty years ago,” Changbin said. “I had a coven but I… left them. For Felix. For you.”

“How did you know how to find us?” Jeongin asked. “How to find the hospital?”

“The vision told me everything I needed to know. We’ve been running for weeks.” I looked down. “Please… don’t turn us away.”

Changbin took my hand.

“Of course not,” Chan said gently. “This is what we do. We’re here to welcome people like you. You’re strays.”

“And kids,” added Hyunjin.

“That’s beside the point.” Chan smiled at us. “All in favour?”

Five hands came up. Jisung sighed and put his up, too.

“Then it’s unanimous. We would be honoured if you were to stay. Consider yourselves a part of the team.”

Hyunjin leapt onto the bed and threw his arms around us, squealing. “Yes! Two more brothers! My hug quota is running _dangerously_ low.”

“Your hug quota is always low.” Seungmin and Jeongin said it at the same time, every syllable in tandem. They laughed and avoided each other’s eyes.

“Ah,” said Chan, “that’s another thing. We only drink the blood of animals. It would be… optimal if you were to try it out for yourselves.”

I raised my eyebrows. My vision hadn’t told me about that. “Oh. Okay.”

“But humans taste good,” Changbin gawked.

“That’s our club’s entrance fee,” said Haseong.

Changbin sighed. “Suppose it could be worse.”

“I think that every day,” Jisung murmured. Jeongin elbowed him.

“Make yourselves at home. Because, well” — Chan shrugged — “this is your home now.”

Changbin and I smiled, squeezed each other’s hands. Thank god it wasn’t for nothing, our lives, our deaths, the whole journey. It all meant something. I knew it in my heart.


	7. the unreliable prophet

Grey skies were all I could see. I missed the sun, the sun was always smiling. I turned my head and looked at Changbin instead.

He met my eyes. We were lying in the sand, our feet just out of the ocean’s reach — good thing, Haseong and Chan had bought us new shoes.

“What’s up?” he said.

“I dunno. What’s up with you?”

“Your freckles are cute.” He gently plied my cheek with his thumb.

“What else is up?”

He shrugged, turned back to the sky. “Haseong hyung and I were working on my powers earlier today. He thinks I could do stuff other than manipulate emotions and make people numb. I wanna get better at — you know, whatever I can.”

I stared at a seagull overhead for a moment, and then said, “Why?”

“To, like, help. To be a functioning member of the team.” He paused. “And — this is pathetic — I guess I want Jisung to think I’m cool. That guy is _seriously_ cool.”

“He’s like who you pretend to be.”

He grunted.

I laughed. “I think you’re cooler than him.”

“He’s _useful._ He’s a lookout, he keeps the cov— er, family safe. I wanna do shit like that.”

“Do… do you think I should be working on my powers, too?”

“Only if you want to. Your gifts would be pretty useful.”

If I could control them better. If the important visions didn’t come in random bursts, and the subjective ones didn’t seem to shift on a dime. We stared up at the sky and didn’t talk for a minute or two.

He pushed himself up on one elbow and scanned my face. “That’s a new one, what is it?”

“Please don’t make me detail my emotional state again.”

“You have so many feelings, it’s confusing.”

I sighed. “If you insist.” I got up on my elbow, too. “Have you ever heard of feeling ‘unastrided’?”

“Er, no?”

“It’s the condition of having nobody on top of you and feeling grief-stricken because of it.”

“Wow, I’ve never heard of—” His eyes narrowed into slits. “That’s a hint, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He kissed me, pushed me back onto the sand. And paused.

“I got it, for the record, I’m not oblivious.”

“I’m proud of you — now shush.”

He kissed me again. I wrapped my arms around his neck, happy to lose myself in him for a while. I was lost…

And then I was more than lost. I couldn’t feel him over me or the ground beneath me. All I could see was black, even when I tried to open my eyes.

I couldn’t do anything but tremble, too scared to move, as a pair of long hands reached toward me, and something glowing red glinted in the darkness.

All at once, the blackness charred up the way fire eats paper. I gasped and lurched forward — my head banged into Changbin’s.

“Shit!” He palmed his forehead, and then mine. “Felix, are you okay? What happened?”

“I-I’m not sure. How long was I out?”

“Five seconds or so. Weird place to have a vision.” He laughed awkwardly and covered it up by clearing his throat.

“It wasn’t a vision, it was… something from my past, actually.”

“Oh. Is that possible?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What was it?”

“No, never mind, forget it.” I didn’t want to talk about it, and I knew that Changbin wouldn’t push me if I let it go. “Just cuddle, please.”

He shyly let himself down, nuzzled his face into my neck. I patted his back and stared at the sky. Visions of the past. I tried not to let it get to me, but always through the grey clouds, a glint of red was just out of sight.

* * *

It was twilight by the time we were back in the city, the sky darkening. We marched down the sidewalk, into a small courtyard behind the hotel. Human footsteps were all around, thankfully not too close. Changbin jumped up and caught a window sill, pulled himself up so he could reach the next. I followed, keeping an ear on the street and an eye on the windows. One guest hankering for bit of fresh air and we were screwed.

Finally we reached our window. I opened it and belted a birdcall into the room — the signal.

“You may enter,” a voice said inside.

I climbed in, about to step backward off the sill, but a biting voice came from behind me. It was Jisung, sprawled out across the sofa.

“Watch it.”

“Or perhaps you could move it?”

He growled. Short and sweet, I suppose. I skipped over him and landed on the floor.

Changbin casually leaned against the arm of the sofa. “Hey.” The Cool Guy Voice. Jisung waved his hand once, didn’t speak. Changbin seemed satisfied.

“Felix!” Hyunjin called. He and Seungmin were sitting crosslegged on the bed. “We’ve been arguing all day, come settle this.”

I hopped onto the bed, folded my legs. “What’s up?”

“You know ‘mind over matter,’ right? Well, which is it, really? Is matter more real than mind, or is mind literally over matter? Seungmin says matter over mind, but I think he’s being pessimistic.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes. “Look nuclear oblivion in the face and fix it with your mind, Hyunjinnie.”

“We’re not talking about the _power_ of _matter_ — we’re talking about which is more _real.”_

“What does ‘real’ even mean?!”

Hyunjin inhaled, about to yell, and then deflated and turned to me. “Please, Felix, your thoughts?”

“Matter.”

Hyunjin gasped loudly.

“Minds can change,” I said. “Think about it.”

The room went quiet, thinking about it.

“Please stop thinking about it,” Jisung murmured, face in his hands. “I’m tired of listening to this argument.”

“If we mean it that way,” Seungmin said, “then I change my answer to mind. Minds can change, but minds can also change matter, right?”

“Not physically.”

“But we’re not talking about physical matter.”

“What the hell is non-physical matter?”

“What?”

The window opened. Everyone except me flinched toward it, battle-ready, but Jeongin and Haseong climbed through. Seungmin shifted away from Hyunjin.

“You forgot to do the signal,” Hyunjin said.

Jeongin sighed and made a loud birdcall. “I feel like an idiot.”

“You may enter, angel.”

“Watch yourself, I’m down here,” Jisung said. Jeongin sat on his stomach. _“Get offffff.”_

“Coast clear?” Seungmin asked Haseong.

“All clear, no worries.”

We had been taking turns walking Chan home from the hospital just in case any more nomads showed up — ones less friendly than Changbin and I had turned out to be. The family were nervy to hear about Ganzorig’s coven and how they probably loathed us. Nomads tended to visit in succession, and they were afraid we had unleashed the floodgates.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Chan said, bouncing through the door. He locked it, turned around and waited with his arms open. Hyunjin flung himself off the bed and into Chan’s hug.

Chan smiled at Changbin and me, attentive as always. “How was your day, boys?”

“Fine,” I said.

“It was nice to stretch our legs,” Changbin continued for me. “We went to Folkestone, hung around on the beach, talked.”

Suddenly Jisung was on his feet, staring at me. His head ticked to the side.

“You had a vision, what does it mean?”

“Jisung, leave him alone,” Seungmin rolled his eyes.

“He had a vision and didn’t tell us about it — am I supposed to let him get away with that?”

“Maybe I was waiting on Chan and Haseong to fill you in.” Which wasn’t the case, but Jisung was getting on my nerves, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he despised it when I kissed his masters’ asses.

“Tell us about it,” Haseong said from the couch. It wasn’t an order, but it was kind of an order.

“You guys don’t have to worry about it. It was a fluke, something from a long time ago.” I was picking at my sleeve. “But I guess that’s not very helpful. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Chan said. “We’re just being extra cautious. We don’t mean to interrogate you, we just—”

Haseong took over for him. “It’s only been a couple months since we met you. Give us time, be upfront about things. It’s for your safety, too.”

I nodded, a little bit done with the parent-act. Jeongin came over and sat between Hyunjin and Seungmin, and we continued the mind-versus-matter debate. Jisung stared a hole into the back of my head, and Changbin tried to make conversation with him — didn’t succeed. The night passed like clockwork.

* * *

“I bet his name is Marvin and he works with animals. He’ll have japchae when he gets home tonight.”

Changbin and I were staring out the bathroom window, watching humans stroll past the courtyard below.

“I doubt he’s both named Marvin and knows what japchae is,” Changbin said.

“Then you give it a try. Butt-chin small-ears over there.”

Changbin sucked his lips into his mouth. “Bartholomew. Advertising. He owns a boat.”

“Well. Good for him.”

The bathroom door opened — Haseong leaned in. “You two all right in here?”

“Just people-watching,” Changbin said.

“Chan’s work hours are almost up. It’s your turn to pick him up, Felix — you and Seungmin.”

“Um, sure.” I turned to Changbin, pecked him on the lips. “See you soon.”

“Be careful of _you know who.”_

The shower curtain whipped open behind us and Seungmin stepped out. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you.”

“Jesus, how long have you been in there?!”

Seungmin just narrowed his eyes, prowled past Haseong and out of the room. I shrugged and followed him. As soon as I walked in, Jisung sat up on the bed and glared at me. Prick. I showed him my fangs.

Seungmin and I headed out the front door and down the hall. We rode the elevator to the first floor — silent. I peeked at him every once in a while, looking away when he caught me.

The doors opened and we headed out into the foyer. The concierge was on our tails, jabbering at Seungmin. I had been working on my English — he said something about not seeing a long time and Seungmin said he should get a life. I wasn’t sure what the expression meant but the concierge seemed miffed.

It was a quiet night, dimly lit by streetlights, just the sound of automobiles in the distance. We crossed the street and turned onto Westgate road — still silent. It was starting to get awkward. I was about to ask him about his favourite kind of weather, but he spoke at the same time.

“Sorry.”

“No, sorry, you go.”

“I just wanted to apologize for what happened in the bathroom. I didn’t mean to intrude, I sit in the tub sometimes and I didn’t want to leave when you two came in. Also your Changbin annoys me — no offence.”

“Oh. Uh. That’s okay.”

We stopped talking again. I was about to ask him why he hung out in the bathtub, but he spoke again.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

He laughed a little. “I also wanna say that I get what you’re going through. It’s hard to insert yourself into a family that already has ties and patterns. I went through the same thing six years ago. Well, not the same thing, but… similar.”

“How did you deal with it?”

“Time just has to pass. Get to know everyone, make your own ties, let go of first impressions and grudges. And by grudges, I mean grudges against Jisung.” He laughed, a cute sound at the back of his throat.

“He’s always like that, then?”

“He just likes putting on a show. I don’t wanna out him or anything, but he’s a softie.”

“You two are close?”

“I guess so. Everybody else is coupled up, right?”

I tried not to come off as gossipy, though I was totally being gossipy. “I see you and Hyunjin together a lot.”

His lips came open and closed. His face was smooth. “Yeah, he and I are close, too. We’re all close, really. Spend enough days and nights together doing nothing and that’ll happen. You’ll see, just stick around.”

I smiled at the ground. The smile left.

“I wanna say something, too.”

“Go for it.”

“I really am sorry for freaking you all out with that — vision, whatever it was. I wish I had more answers for you but my gift” — I laughed flatly — “doesn’t really work like that. It doesn’t work at all, I mean.” Even though weeks had passed, I felt the need to bring it up. I had sensed their unease ever since I’d confessed my vision.

“They’re just like that, Felix — Jisung was being dramatic, Haseong was being a hard-ass.”

“Were they distrustful of you when you first joined?”

“Um. Kind of. Not really. Sorry, no, they trusted me immediately. But it was different, they turned me. You and Changbin are — er, were nomads, you had lives before us.”

I nodded and looked down again.

“I trust you,” Seungmin said quietly. “You seem like a good guy.”

“Thanks.”

“You wanna know how to keep Jisung out of your head?”

“You can do that?” I gasped.

“There are a couple ways, actually. The standard method — repeat a song, a phrase, a word in your head, over and over again. Then there’s the underhanded way. Think about something that scares him, and he scares easily, so not much of a problem there. Clusters of small holes, tight spaces, Goliath birdeaters. And then there’s the way even _he_ doesn’t know about…”

I was listening intently, hunched over a little to match Seungmin’s height.

“Listen to yourself breathe. Focus on it. All he’ll get from your mind is that — your breath, your lungs moving. Assuming there would be other people in the room, he’d think he’s just listening to one of them.”

“Wow. Okay. I swear, I won’t abuse this knowledge.”

“Good. You’re officially a part of the ‘fed up with Jisung eavesdropping’ club. Everyone’s a member except Jisung.”

We turned into the lot in front of Windgrove Hospital and walked up to the building. The smell of blood hit me fast. Seungmin caught it, too. He put his arm around me, held my elbow too tight for it to be an innocent gesture.

“You should wait outside,” he said.

I cleared my throat and nodded. What had Haseong told me? Hold breath, close mouth, walk away? I tried to do what I was supposed to, but the smell was raw and wet and a million times more tempting than those infernal deer and grouse they had me drink.

Seungmin walked me off the grounds and planted me on the other side of a short brick wall.

“Wait here,” he said, “I’ll get Chan.”

“Okay.”

He marched away, across the yard and into the building. I sauntered in circles. I craved human blood every hour of the day — especially now that it was so close. I tried to take in the clean air, the mundane scents, dog piss and very potent cologne. I dropped my face into my hands and cursed my life.

“Felix.”

I spun around. There was no one in sight. My foot tapped on the sidewalk as I waited, tense now.

“Felix, come here.”

I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. Seungmin still wasn’t back. I looked around again. There was a brick building across the road, feet roaming the inside though it was under construction. I bit my lip and approached slowly, warily.

The smells on the ground, up the stairs, inside the door, were strange and blended. Not human, not singular. I stepped over the threshold — the door was open — and a floorboard squeaked under me. All at once, the footsteps stopped.

The door at the end of the hallway swung open. Stairs leading downward. I walked down the hall and took the steps one at a time, hyperaware of my surroundings, of my own breath. It was dark in the basement, darker and darker until it was hard to see, even for me.

“Honestly, Felix, the trouble endured to find you.”

My body froze. That voice. It was so close, so familiar. Sweet and deep like music.

A pair of long hands reached toward me, and something glowing red glinted in the darkness.


	8. compulsory

A pair of long hands reached toward me, and something glowing red glinted in the darkness.

I wheeled backward onto my ass and pushed myself away with my feet.

Fei Ngai, my creator, stepped closer, stood over me. Her every detail was exactly as I remembered, pitch black bob framing her face, expression cold and hard, the long darkened scar falling from her hairline, through her eyebrow and across her crooked, once-broken nose.

“Jesus, Felix, get up.” She reached down to take my arm, but I yanked it away and scrambled to my feet.

 _“Don’t_ touch me,” I shouted. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Would you like the unabridged version or no?”

“Make it quick.”

Her nostrils flared a little. “I would be pleased if you were to… aid me in my plan of action.”

I nearly growled aloud. “You’re asking me to come back? What part of me _running the fuck away from you_ don’t you understand?”

A bit of movement to my sides, low snarls. I took a step back, raising my hands.

“How many do you have now?” I asked.

“Eighteen.”

“You brought them into the city?”

“I’m not an imbecile, they’re miles away. These are Seojun and Taya. Sam is upstairs. They’re not newborns, but they’ve found a connection with my cause and chosen to assist.”

“Then why do you need me?”

“Your gift.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“My seconds-in-command are not in possession of special abilities, and the newborns can barely control themselves. I didn’t realize how… useful your gift was until I didn’t have it at my disposal. It would be convenient in the pursuit of other recruits, for containing the young ones.”

“I don’t want back in and you know it.”

“I also know you’re not the best at deciding what’s good for you. I’m telling you to _think,_ to actually consider it.”

“I won’t change my mind.”

“Don’t do that, don’t be stupid.”

I was trying to be strong but I just wanted to curl into a ball. She always managed to make a kid out of me.

Another vampire flew down the stairs and whispered to Fei in Russian.

“Your friends are coming,” she said to me, a hint of a smile on her face.

“Will you let me go?”

“Yes. You need to think about my proposition. Will you tell your new coven about this?”

I just walked past her, up the stairs.

“Think, Felix,” she said evenly. “Don’t just cut and run again. Don’t be a child.”

I kept walking, and then running, up the hallway, out the door. I had to stop for a moment. My brain was a light show, flashing too fast in front of my eyes. I doubled over and held my face.

“Felix!”

I looked up. Seungmin and Chan were crossing the road, coming toward me. I ran to meet them.

“You okay?” Chan asked, looking me up and down.

“Um, yeah. I got too close to the blood.”

“I’m sorry about that. A chap came in with a handless arm, he left quite the scene in the waiting room.”

“That’s fine.” I passed them and headed down the sidewalk. They caught up and flanked me.

“It’s natural to be tempted,” Chan said tentatively. “It must be hard to settle for animals when you’ve been drinking humans for years.”

“It’s not a problem.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Because you seem—”

Seungmin poked his arm, told him to cut it out. I was glad. No, I wouldn’t tell them what happened, but there was a mindreader waiting for me at the hotel, so I wasn’t entirely sure I _could_ keep it a secret. What had Seungmin told me? Listen to myself breathe? Could it really be that simple?

I tried really, really hard not to freak out as we walked the rest of the distance without speaking, filed into the Royal Station’s foyer. The elevator didn’t help. I leaned on the bar, wishing I had Changbin’s arm to grab.

Everyone was there when we reached the suite. Changbin was on the floor — Hyunjin behind him, playing with his hair — and Haseong had his arm around Jeongin on the couch.

Jisung had been face-down on the bed, but then he shot up and stared into my eyes. Reading my mind. _Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe._

“What was that?” he said. “Chan, Seongie, he’s hiding something again.”

Changbin tapped my ankle with his foot. “You’re… anxious. What happened?”

I picked each word very carefully as I spoke. “I… was… overpowered by blood at the hospital. I nearly… gave myself over to it. I’m sorry.” _Breathe, breathe, breathe._

“Completely understandable,” Haseong said simply. “We’ve all been there. You have, Jisung, isn’t that right?”

Jisung deflated a little, but his eyes were still on me, suspicious.

“I need some fresh air,” I said. “Be back soon.”

I crossed the room, opened the window and climbed through. Changbin came out after me, caught up with me on the roof.

“Felix, are you okay?”

“I promise I’m fine. I just need some time alone.”

He stepped closer, squinting into my eyes.

“I didn’t kill anybody, Changbin.”

“Just making sure. What happened?”

For a second, I considered telling him. A brief second. I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. They already treated me like a traitor, why give them more ammunition? Besides, I didn’t need to put this information on the line just so I could vent. Changbin was an open book even when he had a _choice_ of keeping it in.

“Nothing exciting,” I said. “Go back to your salon appointment, have fun.”

His eyes narrowed, wary, but he patted my shoulder and headed back down to the suite. I turned and looked out over the skyline, watching the moon rise, the stars twinkle.

So the vision from the beach, from weeks ago, it wasn’t a flashback or a fluke. I hadn’t wanted to believe Fei could find me, or that I would let her affect me the way she always had.

Now I had to think it all through.

The answer to her question should have been a swift no, but my mind was scrambled, and she was in my system, tempting like blood. The loyalty she had taught me hadn’t gone away. I was afraid we were compulsory.

* * *

Animal blood was rank and boring to drink, but when hunt-night came around, I was excited for it. At least it was blood, anything to placate the fire in my throat, something to do other than people-watch and waste away in that hotel all day.

Haseong and Chan were leading the pack, as usual, with the others running around Changbin and I. My breath was coming and going evenly, I made sure to focus on it, aware that Jisung was aware of me. We ran over the A1, heading southeast to Shibdon Pond.

“Let’s split up into teams,” Chan said. “Felix, Changbin, do you mind if Haseong and I accompany you?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Actually, I’ll go with Jisung this time,” Changbin said casually. “You mind?”

“I guess I don’t mind,” I muttered.

“Er, I meant Jisung.”

Jisung sighed, shrugged his shoulders and lumbered into the trees. Changbin followed him like a puppy. I didn’t watch them go. Prick. Pricks.

“You three gonna be okay?” Chan asked.

Hyunjin, Jeongin and Seungmin exchanged glances between themselves, and nodded at Chan. I was suddenly grateful to go with Dada and Papa — at least I wouldn’t be caught in the middle of Whatever Was Up With Them.

We split in opposite directions. The patter of hoofs was somewhere in the distance, the flavourless scent of deer on the ground. I grudgingly followed behind the other two.

“We shouldn’t have let those three go on their own,” Haseong said. “Hyunjin is a good person, but… him and Jeongin, they’re a time bomb. Jeongin doesn’t deserve it.”

“You can’t protect him forever. Not like we used to.”

“I suppose not.” Haseong’s head ticked in my direction. “We’ll continue this later.” He sniffed the ground and pivoted to the right. “They’re past the creek. Can we all go at once?”

“Can we? Or shall we?”

“Not now, darling.”

We darted toward the sound, took out one deer each. I sucked mine dry while the rest of the herd scattered into the woods. Rank, earthy, dirty, almost fishy. I wiped my bloody hands on its coat, rolled the body into a shrub.

Chan came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “Felix, how are you?”

“Um, what do you mean?”

“You haven’t been yourself recently. You know, after what happened at the hospital.”

I got to my feet, brushing my hands off. “Um.”

“It’s all right to feel guilty. Craving humans is reason enough, but you can’t let it dominate your life. You’re putting in the effort, you’re hunting animals right now.”

“I know,” I said, looking down. “Thank you. It’s… not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s a personal thing.”

He looked at me softly. “It’s tempting to be tough, innit? I went decades without speaking to a single person, believing my own company was enough. But I only started to heal once I” — a look of gravity crossed his face — “found the people who would listen. My people.”

“Okay.”

“Whatever you’re going through, Felix, it will pass. We’re always here to talk.”

“Okay.”

“What he’s trying to say is, talk to us,” Haseong chimed in.

“If you want,” Chan added.

“I’m fine,” I said shortly.

“Keep us updated, yeah? We wanna know you, we wanna be a help to you.”

I bit back an eye roll and muttered, “You wanna trust me.”

“What?”

I immediately regretted saying it. “Forget it.”

“No, what’d you mean?”

“I just… I don’t think you trust me. With my past, my visions.”

“We” — Chan cringed — “trust you completely, Felix.”

“You don’t, and that’s fine.”

“You’re unlike anyone we’ve ever welcomed into the inner circle,” Haseong said, “you and Changbin. We’re cautious of what could come our way, but it’s not like we think of you as a threat.”

“Really? Because I have this theory that Jisung doesn’t simply take joy in invading my privacy — I think you _tell_ him to read my mind.”

I was ready for them to deny it, but they both stayed quiet, glancing at each other. I pinched my nose between my fingers, like the anger was located in my sinuses.

I spun on my heels and stomped away, trying not to look like a hot-tempered child. They didn’t try to stop me. Luckily the forest was big enough to give each of us a zone to ourselves. I was still thirsty — the deer from before was a runty one. I crouched to the ground, sniffed, looking for a trail.

There was a scent hiding in the grass, but it wasn’t animal.

I fell back onto my haunches and blew out a breath. Was this my life now? Forced to live like a damned civvy, constantly irked by my new family, tracked and pursued by my old one? I felt like grabbing Changbin and running, leaving it all behind, and then I remembered I was pissed at him, too.

I followed the scent south, and soon the trees abated, led to a clearing of grass and short bushes, a calm pond in the middle. A figure sat on the bank, legs bent up in front of her, staring at the ducks floating in the water.

I walked up and hovered a few feet behind her. “You followed me?”

“Not personally.”

“Who?”

“Sam. He’s a tracker.”

“Is he here now?”

“We’re alone.”

I bit my lip. And sat down next to her, at a safe distance. The ground was pebbled and dusty.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I came at you pistons firing when I should have… not done that. I apologize if I caused you distress.”

“I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why you’d think I’d come back.”

“Perhaps I… missed having you around.”

“If you really missed me, you would have come looking for me before my gift became of use to you. Right?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Christ, why did I have to be right again? How many more people could prove my insecurities valid by sunrise? I turned my eyes to the ducks.

“Again, my apologies,” she murmured. “My behaviour toward you is not indicatory of how I feel about you, Felix, you must know that.”

“Well, fantastic, that solves all my problems.”

She turned toward me. Her face was cold but her eyes were tepid. Pretty good by her standards.

“Tell me what your problems are. If you’d like.”

I watched the ducks again, trying not to open up.

“You,” I said.

“I can’t argue with that. Will you allow me to explain my plan again?”

“Has it developed any further than ‘attack, win, celebrate with virgin blood and rule by an iron fist’?”

“You make me sound like a cartoon character, cut it out.” She smiled and moved a single strand of hair off her forehead. “You were there at the beginnings of my plan. I know I must have seemed blinded by ambition. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve smoothed out the wrinkles. The plan has grown, I’ve grown.”

I waited.

“I’m still amassing my army. I’ve travelled the continent for the last year, recruiting soldiers. I target the weak ones, the ones who have nothing else to live for, so when they wake up, they won’t resist. You know what happens if a newborn has been turned without permission.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“But, for the successes I’ve had, I must have spoken to dozens that… didn’t work out. Just because they’re walking late at night doesn’t mean they’re without reason to live, unfortunately. I’ve had to dispose of them.”

“You kill them? Even after you know they have full lives?”

“My behaviour as I probe them is not discrete. I have to demonstrate our powers lest they brush me off as a lunatic. To let them live with the memory is too risky. But if I had your abilities, you could tell me their futures, whether they have a home, or someone to go home to. And if they don’t, I can go in for the kill. Less time wasted, less blood spilt.”

“So you want me to follow you around and tell you who’s _okay_ to turn? That’s it?”

“The measure of involvement you’d have in my project is up to you. In addition, you could be a recruiter — talk to the targets, convince them to join. You could be my second in command, my _real_ second in command, not like those three idiotic flunkies. You could fight by my side as we lead a strike on the Volturi.”

“Explain your battle plan. How do you expect to make it past the guard? The stories you told me, the gifts they have…”

“Taya has connections with two Russian nomads who’ve had several encounters with the Volturi. They have a solid idea of what the palazzo looks like, and are willing to supply me with a blueprint. I’ll find a weak spot in the Volturi’s defence and hit head-on with the newborns on the frontline. Taya, Seojun, Sam, the best fighters and myself will be the second wave after the first tires the guard out, we’ll get the job done.”

I looked back and forth between her scarlet red eyes. She, admittedly, had more of a plan than she did a year ago. “The newborns… do they know? That they’re probably gonna die — _actually_ die? Do they know _you_ know that?”

“I suppose not. It doesn’t matter anyway, they got themselves into this life.”

I closed my eyes. Those innocent people, they had no idea what they had gotten themselves into. I wanted to protest, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I knew it wouldn’t have an impact. Fei’s skewed ethics weren’t in my control — never had been.

But there was something I _could_ control. I could make sure she wouldn’t kill anyone else for no more reason than ‘they knew too much.’ It was a tiny part of what was wrong, but I could fix it… at a cost; I’d be back in Fei’s circle, caught up in her coup.

Jesus Christ. I’d just made it into a new life. Even if it wasn’t _working out_ the way I thought it would, why would I let myself fall back into what I’d tried so hard to get out of?

If it was such a bad thing, why didn’t I feel it? The woman beside me had changed — not drastically, but that she was willing to change at all spoke volumes. She wanted me back. She needed me. There was a part of me that really liked that. And it wasn’t like I’d be in her battalion, just a scout. Nobody would know, I wouldn’t let it affect Changbin and I. I could be useful, for once. It would be for the greater good.

“Okay,” I said quietly, disbelieving of my own words. “I’m in.”

Just a hint of her sharp-toothed smile came to her face. “Really?”

“Yeah. Nothing more than a scout, though, and Volterra is off the table, I won’t be there when you get yourself killed. But… I’ll help you. I want to.”


	9. wanting you wanting me

Fei told me the first scouting mission would take place at dusk the next day. She didn’t tell me where, just to go for a walk and keep my nose to the ground. It was good she didn’t give me all the details. The secrets were piling up, and I had a mindreader to keep out of my head.

After she gave me a noncommittal pat on the head and disappeared southwest, I marched back into the forest, hung out in the trees and waited for someone to find me. Eventually Seungmin, Jeongin and Hyunjin passed by. I caught them in the middle of an Awkward Lull — convo was sparse.

We met the others at the forest edge. They were kneeling on the ground, heads bowed. Praying, I guess. I put my head down, too, but my mind was blank. The eight of us ran full-speed out of the forest, pointed toward the city. I breathed in and out, in and out, and Jisung listened, eyes squinted at the back of my head.

Jisung finally let up once we reached the hotel. He stopped Haseong and Chan, asked if he could talk to them privately. They hung back in the hallway while the rest of us continued into the suite. Changbin and I sat down on the sofa and I slouched into his side.

“Did you get enough to drink?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I was enjoying momentarily not having to censor my thoughts.

“What’s up? You’re feeling… trepidation?”

But I guess my thoughts weren’t all I had to worry about. “No — trepidation? No. Maybe overstimulated.”

“Why overstimulated?”

“I don’t really feel like being around people right now, know what I mean? Hey, you and me, let’s—”

“Felix, can we speak to you?” Chan and Haseong were peeking in the door. Jisung strode past them and sat on the bed, staring at me again. I breathed — in and out — and nodded, got up to meet them. They led me out into the hallway.

“Felix, we’re sorry for—” Chan started.

“It’s fine, hyung, I get it,” I interrupted.

“We don’t want to invade your privacy the way we have been. We live in the human world but the vampire world is always following us. You understand that, right?”

“Of course I do. But you’re not gonna stop spying on me, are you?”

“We can talk about—”

“No,” Haseong said. “Not until we know what you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“That’s a lie.”

Haseong and I stared, tested each other. Chan squeezed his hands together, looking supremely uncomfortable.

“Changbin and I are going out,” I said. “You won’t have to worry about us for a while.”

Haseong nodded, didn’t say anything. I headed back into the suite. Changbin had moved to the bed so he could talk at Jisung, and to my surprise, Jisung was actually listening. Hyunjin was next to him, slumped all the way down to the pillow.

“Changbin,” I said, “wanna step out, go for a run?”

He winced a little and looked up at me. “Rain check? Jisung’s gonna teach me to play piano.”

“What the hell is a ‘rain check’? Can you just come with me please?”

“You can come to the lounge if you want.”

I glanced at Jisung. It was hard to keep breathing when all I wanted to do was lock up tight.

“Forget it, I’ll go by myself.” I pivoted to the window.

“You’re upset, why are you feeling—?”

“For fuck’s sake, Changbin, don’t tell me what I’m feeling.”

“Felix, wait—”

I climbed out, slammed it behind me and scaled the side of the building, headed for the roof. I felt like punching something. The last thing I needed was to be fighting with Changbin, in addition to all the other fights I was juggling. It only made me angrier that his cuddles were all that could calm me down.

I pulled myself onto the roof, straightened out and—

Oh my fucking god. Seungmin and Jeongin were kissing. They heard me and broke apart, faces folding into expressions of shock and guilt. I’m sure mine mirrored theirs.

“Felix,” Seungmin said, voice shaky.

“I-I’ll go.”

I spun around, jumped off the edge, landed in the courtyard below and marched out onto the sidewalk. It was early in the morning, there were barely any humans out, and I was walking in double-time, mind oversaturated and overwhelmed. _Damn it all._ I didn’t want to think about any of it.

I kept walking toward the sound of water. Eventually the river appeared in front of me. I sat on the edge of a retaining wall, trying very hard not to think, and practiced breathing.

* * *

I didn’t go back to the hotel. I stayed out of the humans’ way until the sun rose, peaked, and set below the horizon once again. At nightfall, I walked down the wooden pier, sniffing for something out of the ordinary. I’d never figured out how Fei worked so stealthily, but she always managed to get the message across, one way or another.

The first clue I found was a leaf laying in the middle of the sidewalk. It smelled like her. It was pointed northeast so I went that way. The scent only got stronger — I reached a busier part of the city, started running down Claremont Road, following the trail.

The buildings receded around me, and suddenly the scent was gone. I pivoted back, followed it to a church — St. Luke’s.

It didn’t lead me inside. I rounded the corner onto Windmill Court, followed it till it led me straight up the side of the building. I jumped up and caught a downspout, pulled myself into the crook between inclined roofs, and climbed to the peak.

Fei was leaning against a small steeple, her three lackeys by her side. I recognized them from the brick house — Sam, Seojun and Taya, all three mean-looking nomads with wandering blood-red eyes.

“Felix,” said Fei. “Were you followed?”

“Er, I don’t think so.”

She said something quick to Sam, and he flitted away, down the street and out of sight in a split second.

“He’ll make sure we’re alone,” she said.

“What if someone followed me, what will he do?”

She rolled her eyes a little, walking the sharp peak of the roof toward me. “This new coven you’ve found… they mean something to you. I’m aware of that. Sam will merely throw them off the scent if he finds they were tracking you. He’s under orders — they all are.”

“That’s good, since you have them follow me and all.”

She didn’t reply to that. Instead she palmed my forehead and pushed up an eyelid. I shoved her hand away.

“What the hell?”

“It’s a pity. The red suited you, it was menacing.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really choose to abstain for the look of it.”

“You just do it because your new masters say so.”

“They’re not my masters,” I growled, “and neither are you. Let’s get this over with. I don’t know how long my _new coven_ can go without sticking their noses up my ass.”

Fei smirked, gestured with two fingers to Taya and Seojun. They leapt off the roof, to the ground, and I followed. Suddenly Sam was back, shoving to get ahead of me. We slipped into an arched door and then — they disappeared. The inside of the church was big and open, pews pointed toward a grand stained glass window.

“Here,” someone said. I looked up to see the four crouched on a dark ledge above the window. I took a running leap and threw myself into the air. I almost missed my target — Fei grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and yanked me up.

“Careful,” she hissed, shoving Taya over to make room for me. “Game plan — Felix tells us their future, we wait for them to leave, and then we induct them.”

“Why are we doing this in a church?” I asked.

“These people are lost. Why else would they worship their godhead at seven in the evening?”

“They have faith?”

“They’re _unsatisfied._ It doesn’t have to be a question — Felix, read them.”

The three watched me. I avoided their eyes and looked down at the pews. There were seven or eight humans, heads bowed, dead quiet. I closed my eyes and focussed on the one closest to me.

She would make dinner tonight, eat it with her husband. A loveless marriage, but her house was big, and her parents lived down the street.

“The lady in the cloche is happy enough,” I said, eyes still closed, “skip her.”

Fei told me to continue.

The one in the middle would go back to an empty house this evening, the absence of her children everywhere she looked. A man in front was going to attend his best friend’s wedding, he was excited for it. Another man at the back was planning to poison his ex’s new beau and preemptively repenting for it.

“Um,” I murmured. “The one in black, there’s… no hope. Everything’s been taken. And the guy at the back, too, he kinda deserves it.”

The woman crying silently would confess to the love of her life the day after tomorrow. The one leaning back in her seat was simply thanking her god for her dogs. A man near the aisle worked with metal — it would kill him soon, as it had killed his brother before him.

“The guy on the left will die soon. He’s not married, no friends, nothing to—”

A man in the front suddenly leapt out of his seat, and my vision clouded over. He would drink, fight, kill a man in a stupor, be hanged within the month. His parents were dead, ex-wife remarried, children estranged. Nobody would miss him.

I gasped for air but a hand was covering my mouth. I blinked until I could see again. The man slammed the arched door behind him, leaving the church.

“Felix,” said Fei, taking her hand away.

“He j-just gave up,” I said. “On recovery. He’s low. He has no one. Follow him.”

“Seojun, take the one in black when he leaves — Taya, you’re on the lowlife. Sam, take the sad sack. Meet in the Moors. Felix, come with me.”

“Fei, I’m just here to tell the future.”

“Unless you decide you want more. I’ll show you the ropes.”

I sighed a deep breath. That spark of excitement in her face, she knew I couldn’t resist it. Besides, where else did I have to go? At least here I was wanted.

“Fine.”

We ghosted to the floor and out into the foggy twilight. The man was walking briskly down the road, hands in his pockets. His blood, the scent coming off his skin, smelled luscious. I could imagine how it would feel in my mouth, sating me, his fragile flesh splitting between my teeth.

“Quit swallowing,” Fei said. “It’s distracting.”

“I wanna drain him. And his parents. And his parents’ parents.”

“I’d appreciate if you left my mark alive. If you so wish, I could escort you somewhere more fruitful after this. It’s a convent, but I’ve always preferred to feed somewhere my incursion will make a lasting impression.”

“That’s not necessary. Are you gonna pick this guy up or what?”

“Watch and learn.”

Suddenly she wasn’t beside me. I swerved into the trees, kept my eyes on the man. His face was weathered, beard short and black, head bowed toward the sidewalk.

“Hello.”

He straightened out, looking around. Fei was a couple yards in front of him, posture demure, hands crossed behind her back.

“Good evening,” he said simply, brusque.

“Where are you going this evening?” She spoke slowly and softly — I could understand her English.

“Pub, what’s it to you?” On the contrary, his words were garbled and frustratingly British.

“Forgive me for being curious. Can I walk with you?”

His lips pressed together in the centre of his scruff. He kept walking and Fei followed at his side.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Arthur. Yours?”

“Fei.”

“Fei. I’ve… never seen a lady like you out here before.”

“I’m here for a reason.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like you to know that you’re wanted. There’s an opportunity under your nose and I am the harbinger of that opportunity.”

The man smirked. “I feel I’ve been granted this opportunity before. You’re very forward, coming to the man like this.”

Fei rolled her eyes too minutely for him to notice. “A misunderstanding. I mean a chance to become something better. To walk toward a more beautiful future. What if I said I could make you immortal? Indestructible? Strong, fast, fearless? Something more than human?”

“I’d say you’re a little bit off your cracker.” I didn’t see what food had to do with this. “Keep talking.”

“I’m good at reading people. You’re at a time where you are looking for something new. Something to believe in.”

It struck a chord. His eyes shifted to peek at her.

“You don’t know the half of the world you live in,” Fei said. “There’s a cause that needs you. A purpose.”

“What does that mean? What… what are you?”

“I am not allowed to say that — for the moment, at least. Let me change you and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Change me? How?”

“A bite. It will hurt a little.” I almost laughed out loud. “But it will be over before you know it. And then you will be strong. Free. You will feel as though you know the ground beneath your feet and the air you breathe.”

She almost had _me_ believing, and I had already lived it, I already knew it was bullshit. We were not indestructible nor fearless, not even close to being whole — she pitched it as if the change did that for us.

Arthur wasn’t sure. His future started to pend, flicking in and out like a film reel.

“So, what, you’re one of these… creatures?” he said.

“Yes. Would you like me to show you what I can do?”

“Um… I suppose.”

There was an automobile parked at the side of the street. Fei walked over to it, braced her hands underneath its body and lifted it over her head.

Arthur gaped, rocking back on his heels. “Wh-what the hell are you?”

Fei let the car down with a heavy clank. Fluid spilled out of the cracks her fingers had left in its underbelly.

“I’m evolved,” she said. “You could be, too. At a price.”

“What price?”

“It is not heavy. You will have to leave your world if you wish to enter mine. You must vanish quietly. Your family cannot know that you still live. You cannot go back to them.”

“I… I have children.”

“But they are estranged, uninterested in keeping your company, correct? How much would they miss you if you were to disappear? Look at yourself, what else do you have going for you except potential? Allow me to unlock that potential.” Fei held her hands out to his face, the way she had with me. “Embrace a future without strife, without weakness or doubt. It is at your fingertips.”

Arthur’s face was conflicted, but I saw the change in my head. The future was set. His face slowly softened, caught up with the decision he had already made. He raised his hand, and Fei took it, caressed it between her own.

“Come with me.”

She led him across the street, into the edge of trees. I ducked out of sight and followed. She pulled him deeper into the forest, the dark maze, and held his mouth closed as she tore her teeth into his neck, fast and clean. His scream was muffled, his arms swinging, desperate to fend her off.

She broke away, took her hands back, and his body fell to the ground, writhing at her feet. I approached carefully — blood was pouring from his throat, I could smell it, I craved it, from where I was.

“That was some fine manipulation,” I said.

“Quit it,” she scoffed. “That went sublimely. You did well, too.”

I looked down, quietly enjoying the compliment.

“I could have made quicker work of him if he wasn’t such a stubborn git. Christ, I hate it when they have stubble.” She hawked and spat into a bush.

“Didn’t think it was pertinent to say he’ll be… drafted once he wakes?”

“He’s been warned there was a cause. Besides, he won’t leave the only people he has left. They never do.”

“I did.”

“Well. They are not as strong as you, are they?”

We stood there, arms at our sides, and tried not to have a moment. The only sounds were the crickets singing in the brush and Arthur’s screaming. She bent down, grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him past me.

“The rest are coming.” She propped him up against a tree and flicked leaves onto him. “It tends to perturb the other signees when they can see what’s coming. Give me your sock.”

“What?”

“Felix, sock.” She stuck her hand out.

I took off my shoe and passed her my sock. She stuffed it into Arthur’s mouth to shut him up.

Seven pairs of feet were walking at a human speed toward us. They came through the trees, the three vampires behind the four humans, corralling them. Three of their futures were set — the man on the left was unconvinced.

Fei stood from her crouch and walked to meet them. I stayed in the shadows with Arthur, just in case he managed to spit out the sock.

“My heart goes out to each and every one of you,” Fei said, earnestness ringing in each word. “I’m counting four. What’s your name, elder?”

“Elizabeth,” the woman said. “This is my daughter.” She gestured to the lady next to her, the one in black. “She said I must come with her, to this new world…”

“We have nothing left here,” the woman in black said simply.

Fei smiled a sharp-toothed smile. I could practically hear what she was thinking. _A bonus. You’re my lucky charm, Felix._

“You are so welcome.” She took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “Is everyone ready to begin?”

“I’m very sorry,” the man on the left said, “but I’m not quite convinced this ain’t some doomsday cult. I mean, who the hell are you even?”

“My name is Fei, and this is not a cult. Each one of you is being called to something great. You shall run at my side and bring justice to a people.”

“You women got the right ta vote four years ago, what’s the damn problem now?”

“You misunderstand me, we are fighting against an unfair system, a tyranny in a world you know not—”

The man rolled his eyes. “All right then, you’re obviously a nutter. I’ll leave you people to defile Jesus on your own.”

He turned and walked away at a brisk pace. He was right to leave, to listen to his instincts. Despite what I knew about him, I almost felt remorse. Escape wasn’t as easy as walking away.

Fei sighed, shaking her head ruefully. “Felix.”

It was a jolt to hear my own name. I stood and took a couple steps toward them.

“Would you make sure the gentleman gets home safely?” She let me know what she really meant with a little quirk of her lip.

“What? No.”

Her smirk dropped. She was disappointed. I lowered my eyes, trying not to give in just so she wouldn’t look at me that way.

Fei glanced in Seojun’s direction, and he followed after the man, cracking his knuckles. The humans didn’t notice his departure.

“Now are we ready to begin?” Fei queried. “This might disturb you, but do not fret, it will be over… like that.”

She walked up to the remaining male, leaned down and bit into his throat. The mother and daughter gasped and shrieked, faltering back, but Sam and Taya caught their wrists, restrained them.

Fei let the man drop, his blood smeared over her mouth. “Just like that.”

The humans kept screaming as Fei approached them. I had to turn away, I had to walk away. Their hearts were pumping so fast, blood was spilling out of them. Eventually they were all down, thrashing against the cold ground.

“Good job,” Fei said to the nomads. “You’re improving. I wasn’t expecting so much success, actually.”

“You underestimate us too much, Mrs. Ngai,” Taya said.

“It’s insulting,” Seojun added, returning from the woods. He smelled of cologne but the man’s body was nowhere to be seen.

“Insulting? Tsk, so sensitive.” Fei smiled, the slightly superior yet comforting one, the one I had known for years. She smiled it at _them._ “Take their bodies away, meet back at the site.”

They all said yes ma’am and saluted like mindless little minions. Fei turned back to me, wiping the blood away with her sleeve.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it, Felix? I hope it has swayed you in our direction. Your efforts are appreciated.”

“Er. Yeah.”

A quick nod. “Alright. Good evening.”

She almost turned but I asked her to stop. I didn’t know what I was doing, I knew it was wrong, but at the same time I knew what I wanted. I wanted to see her proud of me again.

“About next time,” I murmured.

“There will be a next time?”

“Yeah. And I want to recruit for you, too.”


	10. hope

Running with Fei may have been emotionally exhausting and a weight on my conscience, but going back to my coven wasn’t any better. How many arguments had I left on the go? Two and a half? My first priority was Changbin. I needed his cuddles even more after the day I’d had.

I jumped from the courtyard to the windowsill and pulled myself up. I didn’t hear as many feet bustling inside the suite as I expected, only two rows of toes fidgeting, locks of hair slipping through fingers.

I peeked in the window. Jisung and Jeongin were sitting on the bed, speaking in hushed tones.

“I can’t believe myself,” Jeongin murmured, hands fisted in his own hair. “I kissed him. Jesus Christ, I fucked it up, I fucked everything up.”

“You’ll make it right,” Jisung said. “Hyunjin would do anything for you. He’ll forgive you.”

“What if he doesn’t? I can’t lose him, I love him more than I love myself.”

“I believe you. But… what about Seungmin?”

Jeongin dropped his face into his hands. “I don’t wanna think about him. Don’t make me think about him.”

Jisung sighed. The conversation lulled. I waited outside the window for a couple minutes longer so they wouldn’t think I was eavesdropping.

I pulled myself up and ducked through the window. Jisung had been slouching, guard down, but he sat up as he heard me, eyes locking onto mine. _Breathe in and breathe out._

“Have a fun day out?” he said bitingly.

“Jisung, stop.” Jeongin straightened out, too, watching me anxiously. “I’m sorry you saw… what you saw. It must be weird for you.”

“But you won’t say a word, will you, Felix?” Jisung spat my name like it tasted bad on his tongue.

“Of course not,” I said. “Jeongin, this is your thing. Love is difficult. Love is a fucking tyranny, but it’s… kind of irresistible.” I swallowed and focussed on breathing.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” Jeongin murmured. “Love shouldn’t hurt.” He slumped into his hands again, and Jisung rubbed his back. I fell onto the couch, dropped my head back, staring at the ceiling.

“Where’re the rest?” I asked.

“They started a search party for you,” said Jeongin.

“More like a manhunt,” Jisung corrected him. “They’ve been out for hours.”

One part of me felt guilty. They cared enough to look for me, even after I had stormed off in a hissy fit. The other part was perversely amused, imagining Chan and Haseong running around on a wild goose chase without the foggiest idea of where I really was.

“So,” Jisung started, “what’d you get up to all day?” He didn’t try to play it off as anything but an accusation.

“Nothing much, just burning an effigy of you.”

“Watch your mouth, nomad.”

“Why? You keep right good tabs on me, don’t you?”

He smirked. “I don’t know why you’d think that.”

“You’re not as covert as you think, slick — gotta watch that ego.”

His lip curled back. “Jeongin, do you think Haseong would be very upset with me if I flicked the kid into the Tyne like a flea?”

I scoffed. “Might you take care of the fleas you already have first?”

Jisung lurched toward me but Jeongin caught his wrist.

“Don’t do that, Jisungie.”

Jisung softened instantly and petted Jeongin’s hand in his. So he _was_ capable of genuine human emotion. How long would I have to stick around for him to warm to me? Perhaps I’d have to make an effort. Ugh. Prick. I stared at the ceiling again and played bongos on my belly.

Eventually I heard hands scaling the side of the building. Seungmin, Haseong and Chan climbed into the room, and a second later, Changbin and Hyunjin opened the front door. Changbin smiled as he saw me, came over and sat next to me, kissing my palms. I watched as Jeongin ran to hug Hyunjin, not giving Seungmin so much as a glance.

Jisung was squinting at Chan, curious, and Chan nodded slightly. Jesus Christ, couldn’t they wait until my back was turned to gossip about me?

“What happened?” Jeongin asked.

“The trail split off in the middle of the road, into the river,” Chan answered. “It was gone on the other side.”

“Thick like blood, that water,” Haseong said, his clothes and hair sodden. “I’m in the bath, see you tomorrow.” He marched into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it.

“Glad you’re safe,” Chan said to me. I just nodded. Seungmin gave me a pat on the head. His face was unreadable but I could guess what was going on behind it. I smiled up at him, shrugged a bit.

“Felix, we should talk,” Changbin said tentatively.

“Roof?”

“Sure.”

We climbed out through the window. He gave me a boost onto the sill above ours and I pulled him up after me. Once we were alone with the stars above us, I could finally let myself think. I rubbed my temples for a second, and then Changbin’s hand was on my shoulder.

“Felix, what’s going on with you?”

“It’s complicated, but I… I’m sorry about what happened. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“You’ve been feeling so irritated with me… you’ve been jealous. Are you honestly jealous of Jisung?”

“What? That prick? No, it’s… it’s not like that, I’m not jealous of him. I’m jealous of you.”

Changbin’s head tilted.

“I dunno. It just feels like you’ve had such an easy time of integrating yourself into the coven. And I’m over here, pissing off Dad number one and Dad number two, mentally probed by their loyal spaniel, stumbling into the middle of—” I stop myself. “Family drama. It’s just been hard for me and it hasn’t for you, and then you wanted to go faff around with Jisung, and I…”

“You felt abandoned.”

“Can you let me finish my sentence? Just once?”

He winced. “I’m sorry. I think I’m bad at this.”

“At what?”

“Loving you. Making you feel… comfortable to talk to me. Look, Felix, it _has_ been harder for you. You take the brunt of their suspicions because of your gifts, because of…” He sighed shortly. “You have secrets, secrets having to do with your past. They asked me about it, Chan and Haseong did, and it made me realize that even I don’t know much about your life before I met you.”

“You didn’t say anything, did you?”

He looked a little surprised by the nervousness in my voice. “Um, no. I didn’t tell them what I do know, and I try not to think about it around Jisung. But I just want to say that, yeah, it’s been hard, and I don’t think I’ve been there for you the way I should have. I haven’t been a good boyfriend.” He held my hands together and kissed my knuckles. “Lixie, you can talk to me. I’ll listen.”

It all built at the back of my throat, welled up in my eyes. I wanted to tell Changbin that Fei was back in my life, that I was afraid I’d lose myself to her, but at the same time, I felt all too willing to get lost. I looked down and tried not to cry.

Lord. He thought _he_ was a bad boyfriend. He was so wrong. He wasn’t exactly emotionally adept, but he was good to me. I hadn’t known what it felt like, to be treated with kindness, respect, before I met him. I wished I could tell him everything that was wrong, everything I had to cry about.

When I looked up, Changbin was crying.

I tensed up, holding his face between my hands. “Bin?”

“You’re in pain,” he breathed. “Oh lord, Felix, you’re in so much pain.”

“No no no, I’m not, I’m happy.” Seeing him cry was pushing me over the edge. I wiped his tears away, stroked his cheeks. He just shook his head, fell into me, holding me close.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into my shirt. “I’m not enough to help you.”

“Never say that.”

“I just wanna take your pain away. Can I at least ease it? Can I try?”

“If you want to.”

A lightening, a haze taking me out of my own head. My worries were faceless. It was a relief, really, to finally let my shoulders down.

“Is that okay?” Changbin asked.

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“Please talk to me.”

I kissed his head. “I love you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, Bin. Nothing else matters. Not right now.”

* * *

I just knew it. Felix from a year ago — the Felix who'd escaped this cold, fanatical woman — would have hated what I was doing, the boundaries I was crossing. _What are you doing? What the hell did you get yourself into?_

Fei and I, plus two of her toadies, were out in the daytime, probably against our better judgement, though the light was grey and bleak. We stood in a circle as the train passengers rushed by us. I’d lost hold of their futures a few times — the others were getting antsy.

“Could you go a little bit slower please?” Taya said.

“Could you shut your mouth please?” I snapped.

“Felix, focus,” said Fei.

A little bit more standing around, searching my brain for a vision, and I eventually found a woman who had lost her family to the Spanish Flu. I sent Taya out first, tired of looking at her stupid face. Next I sent Seojun after a man who worked in the mines. Sam wasn’t there — he was in charge of covering my tracks, just in case someone from my other coven had followed me.

“Go after the man in blue,” I said to Fei. “He… hasn’t been kind to his wife.”

Like last time, I followed behind, hugged by the shadows, while Fei cajoled her largely oblivious target. She bit him in a back alley. After delivering his body to the others, biting their recruits, Fei and I headed back to the train station. Now it was my turn to do the cajoling.

“Humans are sheep,” she said. We were already on the move, following a young addict along an empty street near the docks. “Start out sweet and slow, until they’re comfortable. Once they’re on the fence, feel free to chip away at their confidence, their hope. Self-reform is the enemy of our operation.”

“Sometimes it’s like you try to sound maniacal.”

She ignored me. “Ah blast it, I suppose I’ve neglected to teach you English — how much do you know?”

“I know enough. That doesn’t matter — what I’d like to know is how you do that thing with your voice.”

“What do I do with my voice?”

“You know, make it all lilting and musical. Say something, I’ll try to get the cadence down.”

“This is of little consequence.”

“This is of _little_ consequence.”

“Stop it.”

 _“Stop_ it.”

She tweaked my ear between her fingers. I swatted her away, giggling.

“This seems a good time to approach,” she said next. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

“I don’t need you to babysit.”

“This is your first mission. Call it risk mitigation.”

I frowned, too eager to please. “Watch and learn.”

I walked ahead, eyes on the human’s back. She was skinny with curly brown hair, a long coat hanging down to her bare calves. She walked in little steps, flighty and shaky, like a bird. I stepped onto the street and walked at her side for a moment before I spoke.

“So, how are you?”

She looked over at me and scanned me, my face, my attire. She had dark patches under her hazel eyes, and rough, peeling skin coming out of her nostrils. She clutched her bag, walking faster.

“I’m meeting my beau. He’s in the armed forces.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not dangerous. My name is Lee Felix — er, Felix Lee. What’s your name?”

“Lucile.” She bit her red lips.

“You don’t have to be nervous. I’m nervous, too. Um. Don’t you wish the sun is out?”

She shook her head a bit, still wary. “I don’t mind it. As long as it doesn’t rain.”

“Yes, I hope not.” God, I hated small talk. “Lucile, I do not mean to be forward, but might I ask a question?”

“Sure?”

“There’s this, um, group of people who are different. They are called heubhyeolgwi — vampire in English.”

“Like in Mr. Stoker’s novel?”

“I guess so? We aren’t just stories, we’re real. Can I prove it to you?”

“What, are you gonna bite me or something?” She was teasing but she began to walk faster again.

“No no no. Um, wait a second.” I scanned the road, bent to the curb and picked up a rock. I held it out for her to touch.

She pinched it, felt it was real, eyeing me.

I closed my fingers around it and crushed it to dust.

Her mouth fell open, her feet slowed and stopped. She met my eyes, blinking.

“I’m a vampire,” I said bluntly, “and I can turn you into a vampire as well. If you are willing to join… an army, of a kind.”

“An a-army?”

“We are recruiting new vampires to challenge a corrupt government. It won’t be easy, but… it is a purpose, I suppose.”

“Why would I even want that? To become a vampire?”

“Because I’m also a… future-seer? I see people’s futures.”

“How much do you know about me?”

“Just what’s to come. What troubles you. You’re addicted to cocaine.”

Her lips started to tremble. “I didn’t mean to, I swear, that Freud fellow said it would cure my depression. Please don’t tell anyone, I’ll be fired, I—”

I took a careful step forward — she didn’t back away. “Don’t be anxious. You have troubles, so do I. Yours… I’m sorry, you will die because of them.”

Her nostrils flared. “No offence, but you could be some loon off the street, how the fuck am I supposed to trust you?”

I opened my mouth. And closed it. I shrugged. “I guess you can’t, really. But I think you know where you’re going. As a vampire, your addiction wouldn’t affect you anymore.”

“So all my problems, just, poof, solved?”

“No. Not even like that. But… before I was a vampire, I was son to a man who would beat me and my mother. Being a vampire hasn’t solved that problem, it still hurts me. But I have found people who treat me better now. I found the love of my life.” I smiled a bit. “I’m not saying being a vampire is perfect. Your problems won’t just go away. But at least you will have a chance to solve them, right?”

Her eyes grew dizzy and teary. “There… is no hope?”

“No, of course there is. You deserve to hope, Lucile.”

She put her head down. Her future was back and forth, faltering as she made her decision. I fisted my hands behind my back, anxious for her answer.

She wiped her sleeve across her face and nodded brusquely. And her choice was set.

“I’m in. I… want to have hope again.”

I couldn’t bring myself to smile. I had tried to be honest but I felt as though I’d deceived her. I had foreseen it, her bloody, gruesome death, and I was glad she would get another chance at life. I just wished Fei wasn’t the one to deliver it.

I suppose it was inevitable now. If she had said no, she would have died anyway, probably right in front of me.

Suddenly Fei came up beside me. I’d forgotten she was watching. “Lucile, my name is Fei. I will be the one to change you. If you would follow me?”

Lucile timidly followed Fei and I into an alleyway, her heart thumping faster.

“Are you ready?” Fei said, a low, comforting sound.

Lucile nodded. “Just do it.”

Fei took her throat in her hands. I turned away.

“Wait, stop, no!” Lucile shouted. “Please stop!”

Fei backed away. Lucile broke into a pant, starting to sob. She hunkered to the ground and hid her face in her knees.

“Give it a second,” Fei whispered to me. “They cry sometimes. You don’t have to hang around, you’ve done your job.”

“No… no, I’ll stay.” I sat next to Lucile on the ground, carefully put my arm around her. I felt her weight shift slightly, lean into my side, her ailing frame still shuddering. I only held back my tears because Fei was watching.

A few minutes later, when Lucile’s crying had softened, Fei crouched down to our height. She took Lucile’s hand and grasped it tightly.

“Are you quite ready, young one?”

“Felix, will it hurt?” Lucile sniffled and looked at me.

I patted her back, smiled for her. “Yes. A lot. But you’ll make it. I promise. Make it so I can see you again, okay?”

She started crying again as Fei leaned in and sunk her teeth into her jugular. I couldn’t hold her while it happened — blood leaked from her skin, driving me crazy. I hovered at a safe distance as Fei finished the job, as Lucile screamed and thrashed, begged us to kill her instead. We didn’t oblige. She was stuck with us now, with our twisted version of hope.

* * *

“Where should I put Lucile?”

“Just put her with the rest.” Fei pointed to the line of trees ahead. Lucile was still screaming bloody murder, thrashing her whole body. There were newborns milling around me, eyeballing me. They must have been the ones that joined before Fei had come to induct me.

Then I saw what she had pointed at. A row of people, crying and screaming for breath, writhing against the ground. I recognized them, some from earlier in the day, some from our last scouting mission at St. Luke’s. I left Lucile at the end of the row.

I skittered back to Fei, creeped out by the turning zone. She chuckled at my expression.

“Walk with me, it’s a beautiful area.”

It was — high trees, rolling earth, no humans within miles. We left the main site and wandered up a hill sprinkled with orange leaves. I idly listened to the sound of her bow-legged stride, her heavy military-grade boots.

“Before,” she said carefully, “you told the human you had found someone you love. ‘The love of my life.’ Was that the truth or a tactic?”

“It’s true.”

“Don’t want to tell me their name?”

“His name. It’s Changbin.”

“Does he treat you well?”

“Are you going to assassinate him if he doesn’t?”

“I’m considering it.”

“Don’t worry.” I smiled. “He treats me like a prince.”

“As he should. Perhaps your beau was the one to teach you your English?”

“They all did.” I cleared my throat. “My new coven.”

“Yes.” She rolled her eyes a bit. “And how do they treat you?”

“They’re all friendly enough, except this one guy. He’s such a prick, you’d hate him.”

“And how do Haseong and Chan treat you?”

I stopped and looked up at her. “How — how do you know their names?”

“I’m afraid, dear, that I know more about your new masters than you do.”

She kept walking, a smirk on her face, as I struggled to connect the dots. I caught up.

“The hell are you talking about?”

“I knew those two a lifetime ago.”

I waited.

“Oh my god, explain more,” I said.

“If you insist. I thought highly of your masters a while back. Haseong’s… reputation proceeded him. The three of us started our own coven. Haseong was practising his abstinence, Chan was immune to human blood, as was I, though for a… different reason. They were very attached to their ideas of an ethical existence.”

“They didn’t drink human blood — ever.”

“No. And I did. I wasn’t ashamed of my nature. They were always nagging me — ‘what you’re doing isn’t right,’ ‘you don’t have to be bound by the hand you’ve been dealt.’ Eventually they decided I was just too much trouble. They told me they were leaving, going off on their own.” She smiled. “And so I was alone once again.”

I gnashed my teeth. They had abandoned her just because of a difference of opinion. I didn’t know how I would hide my anger the next time I saw them. My masters.

“Anyway,” she said next. “I’d like to say, back in the city, I suspected you were being too soft with your target. You proved me wrong. Felix, honestly, you’ve… grown. You’re not the same as you were a year ago.”

I tried not to smile at her string of almost-compliments.

“What did you do?” she asked. “For the last year?”

I shrugged. “Just exploring, hunting, you know, deep thinking.”

“Do you… regret leaving?”

I shrugged again, super casual except for the ball in my chest. “That remains to be seen.”

“I still don’t know why you left.”

“I… I had to.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t feel safe with you anymore.”

“I never touched you the way your father did, you know that.”

“No, you just drafted me into a war that I couldn’t possibly come back from.”

“I believed we would win, I still—”

“We’ve already had this argument,” I snapped.

She closed her mouth and stared ahead. “You could have told me, left a note. Did you really think I wouldn’t let you go? That I would keep you there against your will?”

“I didn’t know what you would have done. You have to admit the things you do aren’t always… humane. I’ve watched you tear up and burn so many vampires — how was I supposed to trust you wouldn’t turn on me if I betrayed you?”

“Those vampires threatened me — threatened us. I was protecting you. I always protect you, I always will.”

“You possess me, you drag me into your plots and mock me when I decide I want to leave!”

“How else was I supposed to go about it? Don’t you understand the world we live in? Don’t you understand how I feel about you? I would kill every pathetic, godforsaken húndàn on this planet to keep you safe!”

“Then why didn’t you come after me, why didn’t you try to find me after I left?”

“I tried for _months,_ Felix. The snow covered your tracks.”

I’d believed that I didn’t want her to find me — I still think that was true. But it was a strange kind of satisfaction, to know she had looked for me, that I’d left an absence under her wing.

“If the snow covered my tracks,” I muttered, voice lower, “how’d you find me now?”

“By chance. I was doing business in Russia. The leader of a nomadic coven traded me Taya and Sam for political immunity — assuming I will come into power once the Volturi are dismantled. They told a story of a young vampire that had seduced one of their own into pursuing a fool’s errand. They described the young one as an adequate fighter, stupid — which means brave — with blonde hair and no shoes. I knew it was you.”

“Ganzorig,” I murmured.

“Correct. He pointed me west. There was no trail for the longest time, but then across the channel, I picked up your scent. It was fresh on Hythe Beach, you’d been there recently, left a perfect trail to follow, up north and into the city. I could have burst into your hotel that moment, but by then I’d realized you… you had found a new family.”

“Where does you wanting me to scout newborns fit into all this?”

She sighed. “It was… _easier_ for me to say I came because of a mission, not because I, perhaps, wanted to see you.”

“But that _is_ why you’re here.”

“Partially.”

“Why can’t you just admit you’re here because you missed me?”

“Because it would be a lie. You are important to me, you are, but my… life’s goals lie elsewhere.”

My voice was mocking. “The big bad Volturi.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t share my antipathy.”

“I hated the Volturi because they were all you talked about, I never heard the end of it, Volturi this, Volturi that, strike on Volterra, corruption and prejudice, yada-fucking-yada. You were obsessed with them, obsessed with a bunch of assholes in cloaks who you’d never even met — and you refuse to tell me why!”

“I disagree with their fundamental—”

“Stop feeding me your bullshit lines, Fei, I’m not a newborn anymore.”

There was a snarl in her throat but she didn’t let it out. We slowly started walking again.

“I’ve met them,” she murmured. “The Volturi.”

I looked up at her. “What? When? What happened?”

“They killed my family.”

I felt like I had been punched. “Fei, tell me what happened.”

Just the smallest smile touched her face, a little bit of peace in another world. “My love’s name was Huiliang. He was my best friend. We had our first son, Xiang. He was very spunky. And then twins, a boy and a girl, and another girl. They were the five pieces of my heart.

“I think it was 1761. I was out gathering wood. A man approached me. He was old, pale white skin saggy, eyes deep burgundy. I knew he was a foreigner, I knew he wasn’t safe, but I didn’t know how to protect myself. I’d never had to before.

“He… grabbed me. Broke my nose, gave me this scar. Finally he bit me in the neck. I changed in those woods, alone, and he watched, that old…” She looked like she wanted to scream, to rip the earth in half. She breathed. “I learned, when the change was over, he only wanted me as a wife, a plaything. I almost killed him but he managed to escape.

“From the moment my eyes opened, I knew I was different, dangerous. I came across a party of my neighbours, looking for me since I’d been gone so long, and I slew them, drank them, without a thought.

“So I disappeared. I abandoned my family for their own sake. I migrated to other parts of the continent and practiced my abstinence for years.”

“You abstained?” I asked. “From human blood?”

The question bothered her. “No. I still sated myself on our intended sustenance, but I learned to control my thirst. I would practice by cutting humans, denying myself drink for days. I tortured myself until I was more or less immune.

“I went back to my family, and finally I was whole again. They had to get used to it, my cold skin and strange voice, the knowledge that their mother was a monster.

“That’s how it was for a year or so. Life was no longer perfect, but at least I had my family back. Sometimes I smelled my creator around town — I tried to hunt him but he was just a scent in the wind. I should have tried harder. I should have fucking tried harder.”

I waited for her to continue, biting the insides of my cheeks.

“One night, waiting for my children to wake so we could play, there was a knock at the door. I went to answer. Aro was in front, as always, with his ugly bootlicker and that blonde louse by his side. The guard were behind him — a less powerful guard than they are now, but powerful nonetheless.

“Aro’s voice was soft like cotton. He informed me that a vampire had come to them, notified them that I had broken one of the Volturi’s laws. I said I hadn’t known there _were_ any laws — my creator hadn’t taught me. They told me that humans couldn’t know that we existed, it was forbidden, enforced with no exception.”

“They should have killed me first. I wish they had.

“One of the guard held me to the floor as the rest searched my house. I was screaming and screaming, I knew what they were doing. I heard the sound of bones breaking.

“But Xiang, my firstborn, he ran into the living room, where they were holding me. Seeing me restrained panicked him, he stalled for a second and Aro caught him.

“He killed my baby in front of me, slowly. I see his face every day, I hear his voice every day, screaming for his mother.

“I could have surrendered. But I fought. And I ran. I kept running until they weren’t on my heels. I crossed an ocean so they couldn’t find me. I’ve been moving since. I’ve never stopped.”

The ball at the back of my throat was too tight, choking me. I started to cry, arms hugging my stomach.

“Jesus Christ, stop crying.” But her voice shook, too.

I lurched forward and hugged her. My head only came up to her chest.

“Felix.” She inhaled and let it out. Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “I can’t believe I’ve never told you… after my family, after so many years, you were my second chance. You gave me hope. Do you know how much you mean to me?”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, muffled by her thick jacket.

Her lips pressed ever so lightly against the top of my head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, dear boy.”


	11. but deliver us from evil

Fei agreed to walk me back to the hotel. I didn’t want her to leave me yet. I’d miss her once I couldn’t watch her out of the corner of my eye, once I couldn’t smell her — dust and tree sap and decades-old wool.

When I climbed up to the suite, only Jeongin and Hyunjin were inside, snogging on the bed. I was glad they hadn’t broken up — actually, they seemed to be even more clingy since _that_ night.

I opened the window noisily. “Hey.”

“Hi.” They said it at the same time, settling into a hug that still felt too intimate for me to see. I slipped into the bathroom, immediately relieved that I had. I looked like I’d been crying. I splashed my face with water.

Looking into my own eyes — that sparkly gold colour I couldn’t get used to — reminded me of Fei, what Chan and Haseong had done to her. It still seemed too cruel to be true.

I headed back into the main room and sat on the couch.

“Changbin left that for you,” said Jeongin, pointing.

There was an envelope on the desk. I unfolded it and took out the note. All it said was ‘hey.’

“Where is he?” I asked.

“They’re all out hunting.”

I casually stretched my arms over my head. “Animals?”

They looked at each other, then back at me. “Yes.”

“I have a question about that. You know, your — our — abstinence. Why do you do it?”

Jeongin answered. “Chan was the first. He was always meant to be a healer. The people he killed for blood started to weigh on his conscience. He wasn’t even sure vampires could survive on animals when he decided to try it. He persuaded Haseong to do it, and they persuaded me, and we persuaded Jisung, and so on.”

“Do you ever find it hard? To control yourself?”

“Obviously,” said Hyunjin. “You’ve tasted deer. Every time I feed I wish it was on a human.”

“Yeah, about that… what would happen if, say, one of you _refused_ to abstain?”

They looked at each other again. “Um,” said Jeongin. “I’m not sure. For me, it’s always felt like my need for blood was a threat, something to be afraid of. But if I made a mistake, there wasn’t much to do about it, right?”

“This one time I binged, like, six people in a frenzy,” Hyunjin said matter-of-factly. “It took me a while to get the hang of self-control.”

“But what if you decided, no, I think I’m gonna live off humans now. Would you leave the coven, or…?”

“Felix, do you need to talk about something?”

I tried to seem incredulous. “What? No no no no, don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious.”

“Really, I’m not sure what would happen if one of us gave up,” said Jeongin. “But it’s not like that person would be forced out. Ask anyone, we’re a team, always have been.”

Yes, of course _they_ were a team. I nodded and smiled, didn’t say anything more.

“Felix, where have you been?” Jeongin asked. “Where do you go every few days?”

My head tilted innocently to the side. “What do you mean, hyung? I’m just exploring, hunting, you know, deep thinking.”

“Then why does your trail always disappear?”

“So you follow me?”

“Jisung does, at Haseong’s orders. But he never finds you.”

I leaned back, crossed my ankles on the coffee table. “Maybe Jisung needs to work on his tracking.”

Hyunjin sighed and Jeongin narrowed his eyes.

It was an hour or so before the window slid open, and Chan, Jisung and Seungmin climbed in. I didn’t greet Chan, didn’t look at him at all. Jisung, for once, didn’t pay me any attention, instead flopped face-first onto the bed.

“Hikers ruin everything.” Seungmin sat next to me on the couch. “Why do humans have to climb things? Just eat bread, shit it out and die.”

“Is that all you think humans do?” Chan laughed.

“Did I get the order wrong?”

The front door opened. “I just don’t know why you feel the need to wear it,” said Changbin.

“It’s precautionary, I don’t want anything to sully my collar,” Haseong replied defensively. “Honestly, it’s weird you _don’t_ use a napkin.”

“It’s a bib,” Jisung said into the blanket. Haseong sat on his head — he shrieked and flailed his arms.

Changbin skittered across the room, cuddled into my side. I took his face and smothered him with kisses.

“I love you,” I said. “Thank you for treating me like a prince.”

He smiled. “I love you, too. How was your day? What’d you get up to?”

“Nothing interesting.”

Chan was spinning in the middle of the room, doing a headcount. “Oh good, everyone’s here. I’m feeling a quiet night in, yeah?”

“I was thinking something else.” Hyunjin detangled himself from Jeongin and plucked the handset off the telephone. “Who’s up for a prank call or two?”

Jeongin, Seungmin and Changbin bounded up, crowded around the phone. I stayed on the couch, turned toward the window so Chan and Haseong wouldn’t try to talk to me.

* * *

“I didn’t sign up for this.”

I was walking alongside Fei and her three minions, and behind us were 25 rabid, wildly thirsty newborns. It was just days ago that I’d sat and listened to refrigerator prank after refrigerator prank, and now I was leading a mob of illegal vampires down a backroad at midnight.

“Stop being a baby,” Fei said. “Sometimes you act as though we’re not the most physically powerful creatures on earth.”

“Try to physically beat sense into those maniacs back there.”

“They’ve been very well behaved so far.” A newborn started to bay behind us. Fei’s voice whipped out, angry and loud. _“Shut your godforsaken mouth, Jeremiah, not a sound.”_ She turned back to me. “See, Felix? It’s under control, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“My panties are _not_ in a bunch. My panties are unbunched. I don’t even have panties on.”

“I would stop talking if I were you,” Taya said from behind me. I gave her the finger over my shoulder.

“I do hope you’re not too unsettled by our mission today,” Fei said. “I need someone else gifted by my side in the unlikely scenario something goes awry.”

“We’ll see just how wrong it goes.”

“It won’t go wrong.”

“But it could.”

“But it won’t.” She lifted her chin and spoke to the crowd. “Halt. Don’t break formation, don’t make a scene. Step out of line and see what happens, understood?” She looked down at me. “Be right back.”

She strode down the street and ducked into an alley.

I turned back to Sam, spoke casually, as if we were friends. “Hey, you’re the tracker, right? Did anyone follow me tonight?”

He sneered. “They follow you _every_ time, and _I’m_ the one who has to cover your ass.”

Every time. It was a little bit sweet and a big bit annoying. I turned away but Sam yanked me back by my arm.

“You think you’re Mrs. Ngai’s favourite, huh? Where were you when we were planning her assault on the Volturi, when we turned the first group of newborns? Guess what, svoloch — all you’re good for is riding on our coattails like a bottom feeder, _nothing_ else.”

Some of the newborns behind us started to bray, fidget, hoping for a fight.

I shrugged Sam’s hand off. “I’m picking up on a lot of insecurity. You know they have counselling for that, right?” I walked past him.

“Nance,” he said over his shoulder. I bit my tongue and kept walking till I found Lucile, shifting her weight at the back of the pack. She looked healthier than she had when she was human, her frame filled out and her face no longer sallow.

She seemed to relax a little as I came to stand beside her. “Hi, Felix.”

“How’s your throat?”

“Bad.” She swallowed laboriously. “I wanna drink water but I have a feeling that wouldn’t help much.”

“It will not help at all. Just breathe.”

“Is this — drinking — easy? Instinctual? Or am I ‘bout to end up crying on the ground again?”

“It is a shock the first time, but it never was a… guilty feeling for me. I’m not sure how I would feel now, I haven’t drank a human in months.”

“Why the bloody hell not?”

I laughed. “I don’t even bloody know.”

Fei came back around the corner and scanned the crowd, made sure no one was missing. “Felix?”

“Perhaps Felix can man the stern for a while,” Sam said, stepping in front of the others.

“Are you joking?” Fei laughed and called for me again. I gave Lucile a thumbs-up and scuttled to the front. We started to walk, swarming down the alley. It was dark and wet, sprinkling rain. Sam was occupying himself by kicking my heels — I ignored it.

“Since this is a first hunt for many of the newborns,” Fei said to me, “blood will be, well, everywhere. I hope you’re prepared for a cheat day, as it were.”

“I won’t kill anybody.”

“Right, your masters wouldn’t like that, would they?”

“Stop, it’s not like I’ve grown a conscience.”

“You’re abstaining, you refused to kill that coward after St. Luke’s, you cringe at the sight of blood. You know what I think — you’re a civvy now, Felix.”

“I’m _not_ a civvy — why are you so annoying today?”

“I’m in a good mood. Watching newborns hunt is funny. They’re not afraid to do it while the human is still alive and squirming.” Her tongue slid over her fangs.

“You say you’re not a cartoon villain and then pull shit like—”

A glass bottle smashed against the cobblestone in front of us. Our feet stopped in unison. Loud, lumbering footsteps were coming from the alley up ahead.

“Scatter,” Fei hissed.

I darted to the right, grabbed a downspout and scaled a brick building. A few newborns were on my tail, others were still spinning in circles on the street, hopping into garbage cans. Fei yanked them out of the way.

A drunk man bumbled around the corner, walked till he was under our noses, and abruptly pitched to the ground face-first. Taya climbed off her perch and nudged his head with her shoe. He was out cold. We led the newborns past his body, kept walking westward down the alley.

“Your fortune teller isn’t very good at fortune telling, is he?” Sam said to Fei.

She only turned her head halfway in his direction. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten your rank? Man the ‘stern’ yourself if you insist on running your mouth.”

Sam narrowed his eyes and fell to the back of the crowd.

“Ignore him, he’s an orphan,” Fei said to me.

“Er, okay. You know, I’m still not sure what this mission is about.”

“Our objective today is a little different. You’ve been speaking with the girl, you know the latest set of plebes have not yet been fed. Do you know how difficult it is to find blood for twenty-six newborns without the result being that of a massacre? I must be diplomatic.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“Shush. I’ve struck a deal with an individual who is willing to supply us with blood this evening.”

“Are they… human?”

“No. Her name is Benoite. She owns an establishment out of which she conducts her business, and so graciously has invited us to conduct ours.”

She abruptly pivoted to the left and knocked twice on the heavy metal door, kicked it three times then knocked once more. She spoke evenly then, meeting each of the newborns’ eyes.

“Don’t run amuck,” she said, “until I say so. Your sustenance hangs on your ability to control yourselves. Yes, I mean you, Jeremiah.”

The door swept open, and a woman stepped out, nearly as tall as Fei, eyes red like wine. They nodded once at each other, and then Fei at us.

Taya, Sam, Seojun and I broke into teams of two, ushering the newborns into the building single file. The inside was glowing with golden light, hallway lined with intricately patterned wall hangings and ancient-looking vases.

Attached to the hallway, there was a main room. Everything was just as luxurious and more — chaise lounges and couches everyplace I looked — except for the floor, which was covered wall-to-wall with potato sacks. There must have been a dozen humans squeezed onto the furniture, the floor, all wearing tailored suits, hair slicked back with pomade. They were spacing out, each with a smoking bamboo tube in hand.

“This… is an opium den,” I said.

“Did you think we were on our way to a cupcake bakery?” Fei snorted. “I thought it would make it less of a frenzy if the offerings were to be… pacified in advance.”

I turned my eyes down. The humans couldn’t comprehend what was about to happen to them. On the contrary, they looked blissful. I was almost jealous.

Benoite stood in front of us, between the newborns and their prey.

“Let me make one thing clear.” She spoke calmly and deeply in English, her French accent hugging her words. “The humans present are your playground. What is not, is the furniture I paid for. Feed on the floor — I’ve lined it with burlap — and keep it clean.”

“Obey her,” Fei ordered. “Benoite, may I speak to you in private?”

They headed toward a pair of sliding doors, but Fei turned back and called my name. I quickly followed them into another extravagant room, more of an office, and closed the doors behind myself. I saw just a glimpse of the newborns dragging floppy human bodies onto the burlap sacks.

“I promise I will deliver the payment to you,” Fei said. “The amount you have requested is not as easy to procure as I initially thought.”

“Oh Mrs. Ngai,” Benoite said sweetly, “I couldn’t give less of a fuck how you get it, just that I need it. I’m not blind to your struggles, but my business requires more than just opium and potato sacks. I’m only doing this because Aro deserves to watch his empire fall, not because we are friends, understand?”

Fei nodded, businesslike. “I do. The money will be yours. Felix, vouch for me.”

They both turned to me. I stammered. I couldn’t count how many times I had vouched for Fei’s empty promises.

“I vouch for her,” I finally said.

Benoite smiled genially at me, then switched to Fei, smile widening. “You know, I knew someone like you once. She dressed up like a man and got slaughtered in the Storming of the Bastille.”

“Ah,” Fei said, “lucky for her.”

Benoite laughed a lighthearted giggle.

Fei turned, took me by the elbow and guided me out of the room. “Fucking hate her,” she whispered.

Out in the main room, newborns were feeding on the floor, barely fighting at all, and any spill of blood was fading into the burlap. There were still a few humans lying around, high off their asses and oblivious to their predicament. Fei grabbed a man off the sofa and held him to the ground.

I turned to leave, but I caught sight of Lucile out of the corner of my eye. She was backed against the wall, head bowed. I walked toward her.

“Lucile?”

She startled and looked up at me. “Felix, I can’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“Kill them… eat them. How the hell am I supposed to do this on instinct?” She clutched her throat. “God, it hurts so much.”

“Are you not breathing?”

She shook her head.

“Breathe, it’s easy.” I tried to demonstrate, but the fresh blood in the air made me shudder and choke. My own hands flew to my throat.

“That looked like it hurt,” Lucile squeaked.

“No, it doesn’t, I just wasn’t used to it.”

“One minute,” Benoite called from her office, “wrap it up.”

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” Lucile hugged her stomach, starting to panic. “Felix, I-I can’t—”

“If you won’t do it now, you’ll be thirsty for weeks — just breathe, let it control you.”

She pressed her palms over her mouth and shook her head again.

I pinched my nose between my fingers. Bloody newborns. I spun on my heels, searching for an untouched human. There was a man in a suit draped over a chair — I took him by the arm and dragged him toward Lucile. She started to back away but I told her to keep still.

I cut the human’s wrist with my thumbnail. Blood dribbled down his arm, sullying his sleeve.

Her eyes dilated. She grabbed the man and bit into his skin, hunkered down over his body.

I backed away. His blood was on my hands, all I wanted to do was lick it off. I turned, headed toward the door, counting in my mind, backward, forward, anything to distract myself.

Suddenly Sam was in front of me. “Where ya going, civvy?”

“Get the fuck out of my way,” I growled, shoving him to the side. I ran to the door, cranked the big metal lock and threw myself out into the alley, gasping a breath of clean air. Jesus Christ, I was so close to making a mistake, one I couldn’t even attempt to hide. I flitted down the street, not toward anything, just away from the smell.

Then I saw the man. He was still laying on the cobblestone road, piss drunk, soaked with rain. Bruises were forming on his hands, knees, forehead, where they had struck the ground, and blood swelled underneath his skin, so close to the surface.

I took a deep breath, stood over him and begged myself not to do it.


	12. sins like the morning mist

Haseong had said the River Tyne’s water was thick like blood. He’d exaggerated. The water was slimy and stagnant, running through my fingers, stinking up my hair, but it wasn’t as thick as the blood that I wiped from my skin, wrung from my clothes.

Feeling the blood swirling inside me, the adrenaline prickling at my fingertips… how the fuck was I supposed to get back on the wagon? How much more excruciating would the thirst be once I was back in the forest, insipid deer blood running down my throat?

But it wasn’t as simple as that. As I had bitten into the drunkard’s neck, his sagging flesh, the pain had woken him up. He’d screamed and screamed but I’d held his mouth closed. I’d listened to him die. My whole life, I’d killed by the dozens and not given it a single thought.

So why did this death bother me? Why was I mourning him, his life, the future I had killed? Why did the blood still lingering on my tongue feel tainted — so luscious and rich, but tainted?

And the children I had seen in my mind, the ones waiting for him at home…

This was all Chan and Haseong’s fault. Those blasted civvies had given me a conscience. I wanted to tell them to take it back, take it all back — the black-and-white ethics and the superiority and the mental probing. Why should I deny myself my nature? Why should Fei? And why, just because we didn’t abstain, were we automatically below them?

I marched toward the hotel, thighs slapping and shoes squish-squashing. I had no idea how I was supposed to keep my coven in the dark. What if the river water didn’t cover up the smell of blood? What if they saw my eyes? The best plan of action was to get in, get out and avoid them entirely until I figured out what to do. I’d grab Changbin on my way. If not the full story, I could fill him in on my mistake and save him the worry.

I scaled the side of the building and waited outside the window, listening. They were chattering on the bed, gathered around a newspaper. I took the opening and slipped into the suite. They all turned but I was already through the bathroom door, slamming it behind me.

“Felix, guess what!” Hyunjin called.

“Give me a second, I took a dunk.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It was against my better judgement — just gimme a sec.”

I stripped, got into the shower and washed off the river stink. My fingers were fumbling as I struggled into dry clothes. I cringed when I looked into the mirror. My eyes were hot red, flaming red. I had to remind myself to breathe. _Breathe, breathe, breathe._

I was talking before the bathroom door was open. “Changbin, can I talk to you in the courtyar—”

Hyunjin hugged me, picked me up and plopped me back down on the bed. I laughed too-loudly and kept my head down. They were crowded around, every line of sight would out me.

“Felix, you are going to _die!”_ Hyunjin exclaimed. My stomach did a cartwheel. “Er, lemme explain. You know what bumper cars are?”

“No?”

“Picture a little metal motorcar with no wheels on an ice rink with no ice. You’re supposed to bump into other cars until, well, I assume until you’re dead. Anyway anyway anyway, that’s not the point! There’s a funfair in town and Haseong says we can go after hours and boot up the rides — specifically the bumper cars!”

“On top of that, they have an oddities exhibit that I’m raring to visit,” Chan said, rubbing his palms together. “Think of all the taxidermy!”

“Bumper cars,” said Hyunjin.

“I’ll be in charge of the machinery,” Seungmin said. “A bing and a bang and those fuckers’ll be up and running.”

“Bumper cars,” said Hyunjin.

“All those ponies, endlessly circling the carousel for an eternity…” Jisung let out a deep sigh. “I dunno, there’s an analogy in there somewhere.”

“Bumper cars,” said Hyunjin.

“Please come with us?” Changbin snuggled into my side. “I wanna kiss you on top of the Ferris wheel because I love you more than anything in the whole wide world.” He cleared his throat, squaring his shoulders. “I mean, s’fine if you don’t wanna, I’m whatever.”

I scratched my ear, eyes still downward. “I’m pretty much free, just say the word. Changbin, courtyard?”

“Felix, is something wrong?” Jeongin asked.

“No — what? No.”

Changbin leaned over, tried to get me to look at him, but I scrambled backward off the bed. Instantly Jisung was in front of me, craning to look into my eyes. I blocked him, swerved to the side, tripped on a chair and wheeled face-first to the floor.

_“Ow!”_

“Felix, what the hell are you doing?” Changbin was coming to help me up — I grabbed his hand and yanked him toward the window.

“Courtyard, now — nobody follow us.”

But Haseong was in front of the window, arms crossed. The seven of them stood around me, at the ready, waiting on Haseong’s command.

“Felix, why are you hiding your eyes?” Chan asked softly.

I kept my eyes closed, head down. “Can we have some privacy? Just once? Please?”

“Felix, I understand your struggle—”

“Would you fucking cut that out?” I snapped. “I killed someone, my eyes are red — okay? What the fuck does it matter?”

They were speechless for a minute. I looked back and forth between them, not long enough to hold any pair of eyes. Gold eyes. I hated the colour. I hated how they looked at me, like saints gazing upon a poor misbehaved dog.

“Lixie,” Changbin said. I met his eyes, he searched my face, trying to read me.

“Accidents happen, Felix,” said Chan, still regaining his composure. “You’re not evil for it.”

“Is it evil if I don’t want to stop?”

Chan looked down. Haseong spoke for him.

“No. It’s a choice and an opinion, everyone has a right to their own.”

A growl escaped my lips. “Gonna throw me out for mine then? Wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

Chan looked up, confusion crossing his face. “What are you talking about?”

“All you’ve done since I’ve gotten here is judge me and question my loyalty, treat me like a newborn and a nomad. Pity I’ve been such a big fucking disappointment.”

“I’m not quite sure—”

“No, you don’t get to talk!” I shouted, taking a step toward him. Haseong snarled, moving between us, but Chan was calm. “Don’t talk, listen. I don’t give a fuck about your ethics or your chaste little club — you’re hypocritical and sanctimonious and you try to force that shit on me but I’m not gonna take it, understand?”

“Felix, I’ve hurt you,” he said simply.

“Oh no shit, civvy! What is it with you and your patronizing buddy-buddy father-act? Wake the fuck up — you’re not my father, you’re not my family, you aren’t even my friend — none of you are!” Changbin tried to take my arm but I shoved him off. I could see the others fidget, trying to decide whether to restrain me or not.

“I wish,” I spat, eyes hard on Chan’s, “I _wish_ I could’ve known who you really were, what I was really getting myself into, because if I’d known it would end like this — whatever _this_ even is — I would have run in the opposite fucking direction and _never_ looked back.”

The room was dead quiet.

Chan, face smooth and unstirred, walked past Haseong and hugged me. Just hugged me, a gentle pat-pat on my back. Hyunjin wrapped his arms around us next, and Changbin after that. Then it was everyone. Even Haseong and Jisung.

I stared at the wall and sifted through the mindless rage, trying to find something solid. Nothing.

I laughed a bit, flatly, if anything to distract from the tears in my eyes. “I should’ve known.”

“What?” Chan asked.

“You civvies solve your problems with hugging.”

“Shush and enjoy it,” said Haseong.

I did.

* * *

My feet dangled over the side of the building. I was staring straight into the blinding sunrise — there wasn’t really anywhere else to look. Chan and Haseong were flanking me, staring at the same sun.

“I’m… sorry,” I said. “Back there, I was feeling a lot of… emotions… and I took it out on you.”

“We all said and did things we regret,” Chan said.

“Except you didn’t. How did you stay so calm?”

He shrugged. “I was in the wrong. We were.”

“To a point,” Haseong said. “Felix, you’re a good kid, but this is my life, this is my family. I will not apologize for protecting them.”

I wanted to say something sarcastic — ‘how much harm could I possibly do?’ But I knew the answer as soon as I thought it. I was aiding and abetting a criminal, helping her amass a newborn army, and my involvement seemed to move up in rank every time I snuck out. And I’d lied to the people who cared about me. Repeatedly.

“Jesus,” I said, “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“Er. Well, I’ve been angry with you. For reasons I’m not sure I… believe anymore.”

“Don’t feel the need to forgive us right away,” Chan said. “Felix, I’d like to say something — and I hope I don’t sound like I’m trying to be your father-figure here. I’m sorry about that. It’s only because I see you as family.”

I smiled a bit. “Okay.”

“From the beginning, the way we handled your situation was wrong.”

“Flawed,” said Haseong.

“We should have considered how it would make you feel — us, already suspicious, doubtful, of your control. I should have realized that when you inevitably lost control, it would only make you feel that much worse, it would make you want to hide it from us. I just hope you’re not being too hard on yourself.”

I was looking down, pulling my sleeve straight. “Is it weird that it felt… bad? To kill that human?”

“Weird how?”

“Just because, you know, no offence, but I’ve killed a lot of people before. Like, a lot.”

Haseong laughed. “How old are you even? Four? Kid, I’ve killed double the people you have, plus their aunties and uncles. You’re not the only vampire in this family.”

Chan steered the conversation back on track. “What do you mean it felt ‘bad’?”

“It felt wrong. Like a loss. I hate that I was the one who… took everything from him.”

“But, at the same time, you felt as if you couldn’t stop.” Chan cringed. “Sorry, that was patronizing.”

“A little. I dunno — maybe being off human blood so long gave it more… power. I didn’t like that everyone, me included, was telling me not to have it. Why deny myself nature, right?”

Haseong searched my face. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

I looked away.

“What are you thinking now?” Chan asked. “Will you go back to humans?”

I shrugged and held my shoulders up, squeezed against my neck. “I don’t know. I dunno, I dunno. I want the taste, I want the high, but I don’t want the guilt. I don’t want to see the looks on your faces when I come home with red eyes.”

“Trust us,” Chan said, “the only looks will be of envy.”

“Wouldn’t you be disappointed, hyung? Just a little?”

“Everyone has their own ethics, their own limits. Who are we to tell you where to draw lines that belong to you?”

“I… I don’t think I know where my limits are. I think I’ve always just followed what other people believe.”

“Then you should figure out what _you_ believe,” Haseong said. “What feels right and wrong to you. Make it up and stick to it.”

I rubbed my face in my hands. “That’s the problem. I’ve been in weird territory for a while now. If I really know what I believe in, what I don’t… I’ll have to try to get out, right?”

“What ‘weird territory’ are you talking about?” Chan asked.

I swallowed. “You know, my own mind is a prison and all that.”

They were both looking at me. Haseong knew I was lying but Chan just looked proud.

What the hell was I doing? All I could think of was the acceptance I’d been shown tonight, the comfort I’d felt. And the guilt. Maybe I had been the asshole and the hypocrite this whole time.

I had to do something about it. I didn’t want to be this person anymore, I didn’t want to feel sick in my own skin. I had crossed my boundaries, over and over again, and ignored the repercussions — I hadn’t even bothered to figure out where my boundaries lay.

All I knew was that I had to change, and all I could do was hope she’d forgive me.

* * *

“Fei.”

“Felix.” She turned toward me, away from the crowd of newborns. They were practicing a punch-’n’-deflect routine, led by Seojun. Lucile was in the back, looking profoundly confused.

“You’ve caught us in the middle of a class,” Fei said.

“I need to talk to you.”

She walked up to me, took my face and tipped it up. I didn’t resist.

“Yes, red becomes you. When I found that husk on the street, I so hoped it was you who drained him. Benoite threw a hissy fit, as if it was my fault. Even if it was, our arrangement was only a onetime deal, was it not?” She laughed, high and carefree.

“I can’t scout for you anymore.”

Her expression folded and soured. I knew the look well. She took my arm and led me away from the class, into the grove of trees we had passed a few days earlier, when she’d told me about her family. It felt like an eternity ago.

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to help with your coup anymore.”

“What the hell changed? What kind of sentimentalism have those civvies forced into your head?”

“Turning people, killing people, grooming these newborns — it’s weighing on me. Look on the bright side, you can forget making me your Prince of Darkness, it would probably be a lot of paperwork and—”

“Don’t _joke,_ Felix.” Her eyes were hard on mine, nostrils flaring. “How could you do this to me?”

“Fei, I still wanna see you. I… care about you. I just can’t be a part of this, not in good conscience—”

She laughed once, harsh. “‘Conscience,’ he says! What the fuck are you talking about? You’re leaving this cause behind just because your masters told you it was too _immoral_ for you?”

“Did you really think I stuck around this whole time because I believed in the cause? Jesus Christ, I was only here because I wanted to make your scouting process a little bit less evil, because I wanted to minimize the destruction that you _always_ leave behind you!”

She paced back and forth, face in her hands. She raised her head, spoke, voice low and rough.

“You know what happened with the Volturi, I told you why I loathe them so, but you still don’t care enough to stay.”

“I cared enough to ignore my own feelings for _weeks._ I wanted to keep an eye on you but I wanted to stay with you, too. I wanted your approval and I wanted to be useful and I wanted to feel wanted, but how am I supposed to stick around if I can’t live with myself?”

“Ever since you woke, you’ve clung to my word like gospel — suddenly this or that is too evil, too unjust, for you? What about the slaughter of an innocent family, _my_ family, and the fact that their murderers are running free, living in a palazzo and regarded as kings?”

“It makes me fucking mad!” I took a breath. “If the Volturi were just some assholes in cloaks, don’t you think I’d tear them to pieces? But — oh my god, Fei — your scheme is so over-the-top unbelievable and risky, it’s fucking with my head. I can’t deal with the blood on my hands.”

“Have you forgotten what happened between me and your masters? How they deserted me?”

“I… I don’t know if I trust you enough to believe that.”

“Are you saying I’m lying?”

“I’m saying you embellish and exaggerate and — honestly, yeah, lie — all the time. To me, to Benoite, to all those newborns back there. How am I supposed to know if you’re telling the whole truth or not?”

Her arms were folded over her chest, hands fisted. “You would really leave me, Felix? When I need you most?”

“I don’t want to, I want to see you even if I don’t—”

“Leave.” She stood, impassive, didn’t look at me. My legs were made of stone. She whipped toward me and snarled, “Leave! Right now!”

I clenched my teeth, telling myself not to keep talking, not to fight back. Not to cry. I passed by her, left her standing straight-backed behind me. I flew past the class of newborns and through the woods, heading northeast toward the city.

Lucile was running to catch up with me. I rolled my eyes, irritated already. She was in the middle of a brand new crisis every time I spoke with her.

“Felix, there you are! I remember you telling me some kind of military bullocks, but I didn’t realize I’d literally be thrown into the army! Seojun doesn’t let us take breaks, he just laughs when people fight for real — Elizabeth nearly got her head bitten off! Bloody hell, I’m not made for this, I used to shriek when I stepped on a twig — I still do! Wait, are you crying?”

“No, I’m not — look, now’s not a good time for me. Can we talk about it later?”

“But I’m afraid I can’t do this. It’s… eating at me.”

I stopped, sighed and turned back to her. Her whole chin was in her mouth, eyes wide and weary.

“If it doesn’t feel right to you,” I said, “do something about it. Before it’s too late and everything goes to shit.”

“But I don’t know how—”

“I can’t talk now. Tomorrow, the next day, yeah?” I was backing away.

She let out a big breath and nodded. “Yeah, okay. See you… soon, Felix.”

She pivoted and scuttled back toward the site. I hurtled out of the woods, running till the city was under my feet. I was so sick of fighting. I wanted a night, one single night, away from the bullshit and heartbreak. I wanted to float instead of scrambling to keep my head above water.


	13. drowning

The funfair approached like a mystery island, surrounded by a mile of open field. The rides weren’t lit up like they were meant to be — the ponies on the carousel seemed lonely, shrouded in shadow. The Ferris wheel looked like some kind of alien spacecraft jutting into the sky, a silhouette in the moonlight.

“I can’t believe we’re here!” Hyunjin squealed. “I can see the bumper cars already! I’m gonna bump each of you at least once, that’s my goal.”

“I still don’t understand how we’re gonna turn the rides on,” Changbin said.

“I’ve already explained it a million times,” Seungmin groaned.

“He’s gonna attach a doodad to a thingamabob, and then the lights’ll turn on and the rides’ll work,” said Chan. “Simple.”

“That pony is staring at me,” Jisung said. “I feel like it knows my soul.”

“Poor pony,” I said.

“I can’t wait any longer!” Hyunjin bounded toward the fair, screeched to a halt and looked into the bumper car arena. He bounced up on his toes in excitement. “Seungminnie, make it work!”

Seungmin knelt by a bulky generator and started tinkering.

Changbin was looking into my eyes, measuring my emotions.

“Is it hard to be here?” he asked. “Because of your… past?”

Jisung turned his head a bit, scavenging for clues in my mind. Chan and Haseong had gotten off my back, Jisung still thought I was some kind of mole. I pulled in a breath.

“Not really,” I said. “Those memories feel… removed. Besides, my father owned a circus. I don’t see any clowns here, no tigers or jugglers. That hotdog vendor’s tent kinda looks like the one my old buddy Qiao would swallow knives in… but I’m fine. I’m fine, Changbin.”

“As long as you’re fine.” He put his arm around my waist, held me tight.

“There’s no chance everything’ll blow up, right?” Haseong asked.

“Let’s hope not,” Seungmin deadpanned. “I’m kidding. Well, let’s hope I am.”

Suddenly the lights came on. Hyunjin hopped up and down, clapping like an excited kid. Seungmin was smiling up at him, but Hyunjin didn’t look back as he grabbed Jeongin’s hand and yanked him toward the gate. The rest followed.

Seungmin put his head down.

I stayed behind, hovering over his shoulder. I cleared my throat. “Nice night, eh, hyung?”

“Um. Yeah.” He headed toward the Ferris wheel and I followed. He dropped into a crouch again, fiddling with the mechanics. I leaned on the gate.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

He looked up at me. “What?”

“With you and Jeongin.”

He sighed, locking his jaw. “It was a mistake.”

“You know, initially I thought the… complications were between you and Hyunjin.”

He opened a hatch in the side of the base and crawled inside. “At one point, so did I.”

“What do you mean?”

“We clicked when we first met. It was obvious and Jeongin noticed, he was jealous. But him and I spent more time together, and… he warmed up to me. I fell in love with him. That was years ago.” He crawled back out and coiled a cord around his arm. “So yeah. It’s complicated.”

“You’re in love with both of them, then?”

His eyes travelled to the bumper cars. Hyunjin and Jeongin were bashing into each other in these little metal crates, making a racket. Seungmin just looked enamoured.

“Yeah.” He thumbed at his temples — it left a smudge of grease over his eyebrow. “It’s fucking terrible.”

He walked over to a control panel, cranked a lever, and the Ferris wheel rumbled to life, rows of lights glowing along its body.

“You know a lot about machines,” I said, looking up at it.

“I used to steal automobile parts and shit like that, anything I could sell. It’s not that complicated. Everything has a purpose in a machine, it’s not like magic moves this gear or that belt. It all makes sense.”

“It’s nice when things make sense.”

“Yeah… yeah, it is.”

We sighed.

Then he looked up and smiled. “Hey, wanna help me get the carousel going?”

Of course I said yes. He showed me the motor, explained how it powered a pulley that spun another pulley that spun another pulley that made the whole platform go round. As the lights came on, suddenly the ponies didn’t seem lonely anymore. They were smiling wide around the bits in their mouths, big black eyes sparkling.

I rode a bright pink one for a while, watching the world dizzy around me. In the middle of the carousel, the wide centre pole, there was a row of golden pipes jutting up from a keyboard. Chan came over from the bumper cars, sat in front of the keys and played a bouncy song.

Everyone else drifted over after him — even Hyunjin, though he kept stealing lustful glances at the bumper cars.

“I didn’t finish my mission,” he pouted.

“You don’t have to be in a car to bump people,” Jeongin pointed out.

Hyunjin’s eyes lit up. He promptly walked over to Changbin and body-checked him so hard that he fell over.

We migrated over to the funhouse after that. The tent was just around the corner, flanked by the cotton candy stand and the ring toss booth. It was a penny to get in, but we strode past the lockbox without surrendering so much as a farthing, shouting an end to capitalism and giggling.

“This isn’t even that fun for a funhouse,” Jisung said inside, arms crossed.

Seungmin was noodling in front of a distorted mirror. _“You’re_ no fun. And very leggy, may I add.”

“So I’ve been told,” Jisung huffed. The two pivoted and immediately ran into a glowing-green-eyed witch dummy. Jisung screamed and Seungmin punched it.

Next Chan wanted to check out the oddities exhibition. Everyone was quick to offer up a joke about how we would be the oddest things in there, and it turned out, we were. It was mostly baboon skulls and alleged unicorn horns, an excessive amount of taxidermy. Boring. We left after Hyunjin swore he saw a stuffed jackalope wink, but Chan stayed inside, exactly where he wanted to be.

The Ferris wheel was too big and bright to ignore any longer. Seungmin stayed on the ground, the designated lever-operator since, if anyone else were to attempt it, the whole thing would likely come off its hinges and roll into the city like a crazy death-sphere.

I wanted to ride with Changbin, but Chan scooped him up before I could. Jeongin and Hyunjin cuddled up in one of the seats, and Haseong took the third for himself. That left only me and Jisung.

Our eyes met. We both made a run for the empty spot.

Haseong put his palm up and stopped us. “This seat is taken.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Nominally, it is.”

“Haseong, please.”

“For Christ’s sake, just sit next to each other, it’s not the end of the world.”

“But he sucks!” I whined. Jisung cuffed my arm. “AHH, HE HIT ME!”

“Any more of this bullshit and I’m gonna start thinking you two are in love,” Seungmin called from behind us. Jisung gave him the finger and stomped toward the next seat. I followed, a scowl on my face.

We climbed onto the rickety wooden bench. It was weird to be so close to him, even though I was crowded to the far side of the seat — as was he, staring straight forward, hands on the safety bar. I could practically feel him poking around in my brain.

The wheel started moving. I watched the other rides and tents shrink below me. It shouldn’t have been entertaining — I could jump twice as high in a single bound. There was something about the slowness, the way the bench rocked gently like a cradle, the mechanisms creaking like a lullaby.

When I turned to Jisung, he was staring at me.

“Holy shit, would you let me live for three seconds?” I said. “Three seconds, all I’m asking.”

“I’m not reading your mind,” he sneered. “I’ve given up. Obviously I was wrong when I thought you were operating on some higher level of brain-function. Now I think there’s just nothing going on up there.”

I stuck my elbow into his ribs, he smacked my arm, I swatted at his hand, and then the bastard put up his dukes as if he didn’t have the hands of a 3000 year old man.

“Try to fight me on top of a Ferris wheel,” I said, “that’s totally something a sane person would do.”

He put his hands back on the bar, glared forward. I narrowed my eyes at him. Round cheeks and thin pink lips in the shape of a heart — his dumb face was too babyish for this size and gravity of an asshole.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

He looked at me, sneered again, but it quickly folded into a disillusioned frown. He shrugged. “I dunno.”

“‘I dunno’? That’s it?”

“I do this with everybody when they’re new. Think of it as initiation. Hyunjin, Seungmin and your mate didn’t hold it against me. I guess you were ready to hate me, too.”

“I wasn’t _ready_ to hate you — you’re constantly eyeballing me and horning in on my thoughts, do you know how that feels?”

“I was under orders.”

“You’re saying you wouldn’t have read my mind if you weren’t under orders?”

He shrugged again. “If you didn’t have anything to hide, I would’ve gotten bored and tuned it out.”

“Bullshit.”

“Believe it or not, my life doesn’t revolve around other people’s thoughts — not yours, not anyone else’s.”

“Then what _does_ your life revolve around?”

“No, don’t ask me that, that’s too normal.”

“Or you could — just a suggestion — not be a giant shit about it and answer the question.”

He glared at the horizon, annoyed. “Maybe I… don’t revolve around anything. Maybe I’m a random, empty tin can on the side of the road, and ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know who I am.”

Silence. I cleared my throat. I knew what it felt like, not to know where I was going, like a night train, just following the tracks. I had assumed the only emotions he was capable of were irritation, disgust and sudden bursts of unexplainable tenderness toward everybody except for me.

“Well,” I said. “Thanks for answering, I guess.”

He slumped down in his seat, arms crossed over his chest.

The wheel finally dropped us off on the ground. I held my hand out, awkward, and he shook it, also awkward.

I skittered over to Changbin; he and Chan were looking straight up into the night sky.

“That’s Leo Minor right there,” Chan said. “Or as I like to call him, li’l Leo.”

“What’s that one called, Chan hyung?” Changbin asked, pointing upward.

“Which one?”

“That one up there.”

“I don’t see it.”

“The bright one.”

“Still can’t see it.”

“It’s right there!”

“That’s the moon, babe,” I said.

“No, that’s not what I—” He sighed and gave up. “Never mind. How was the ride?”

“Weird. I’m feeling cuddles now to cleanse myself. Mind if I steal him?” I asked Chan.

“Go on ahead, boyo. I’ll be back at the oddities tent — I always go agog at the sight of such precise stitching, it’s an under-appreciated form of art if you ask m—”

“Bang Chan!” Hyunjin yelled, running full speed toward us. “You’re the last on my list! Come get your bump!”

Chan pivoted and sprinted away, and Hyunjin chased him way out into the empty field.

Changbin and I, hand in hand, got onto the Ferris wheel and signalled for Seungmin to send us up. The sun was somewhere near the horizon — it lightened the sky over the tree line, a faint purple glow underneath the clouds.

“How’d it go with Jisung?” Changbin had his arm around me, fingers teasing my hair.

“A train wreck. I mean, I dunno. Maybe he’s more of a human than I thought he was. Still, I can’t fathom why you’re so enthralled with him.”

He laughed. “I think my first impression of him was misguided, actually. He’s not as… cool as I thought. But he’s nice. Sometimes.”

“Life is crazy.” I let my head down on Changbin’s shoulder. “I could get used to this. Everything not being so serious all the time.”

“They’ve been happy, too.” Changbin nodded toward the ground, where our brothers were laughing and chasing each other in circles.

I turned my face up to him. He leaned in and kissed me softly.

“Can you feel that?” I asked.

“What?”

“All the love I’m feeling right now?”

“I wasn’t gonna say it. But I can feel it.”

“And?”

“I love you so much, Lixie.” He kissed me again, cradling my face in his hand. Waters were settling, I felt the current subsiding. My feet were dangling off the peak of a Ferris wheel yet somehow I felt more grounded than I had in years.

Solid ground. The way it felt against the soles…

Suddenly it was too real.

My feet were stuck. I couldn’t move, I was restrained, held down, held back. Where was I, where had I gone, where had I been taken?

“Felix?” Just an echo of Changbin’s voice reached me. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t feel him. Faces came into focus one by one. Lucile was in the back, a tall man behind her, apart from the crowd of newborns, each one forced down and held to the ground.

Then I recognized them. The Volturi.

Aro’s old burgundy eyes were sharp and giddy as he held down a figure in front of me, one hand knotted in her hair, the other tight around her throat.

Fei raised her head.

“My son,” she whispered.

Aro twisted her head off her neck, her arms from her torso, and she dropped to the ground, lifeless, fire engulfing her body.

* * *

I came to consciousness screaming and crying, my back on the ground. Changbin and the others were kneeling around me, hands on my arms and legs to keep them from thrashing.

“Felix, calm down,” Changbin said, soft but pleading.

 _“No!”_ I couldn’t do anything but scream, beg, try to free myself. “No, _please,_ she’s dying, she’s gonna die!”

“Who does he mean?” Hyunjin asked. Seungmin shrugged, Haseong chewed on his lip. Jisung was sitting back on his haunches, eyes ticking with knowledge.

“Who, Felix?” Chan said. “Who’s ‘she’?”

I had to calm down, I had to get out of here, I had to find out what had changed, what triggered the vision. I yanked my arms to my chest.

“Please let go — let me go,” I panted. They released me reluctantly. I sat up, palming my forehead, shaking and twitching. “I’m sorry, I dunno what h-happened.”

“Are you okay?” Chan asked attentively. “Who were you talking about?”

“Look, I think I have to go. Don’t worry about me, I just need some time to—”

“Felix, what the hell is wrong with you!” Changbin blurted out. “I just watched you randomly break into a seizure, screaming about some woman, and now you wanna go on another one of your day-long explorations? For Christ’s sake, tell me what’s going on!”

I hadn’t heard him speak so strongly before. I stuttered. “I-I can’t, believe me, it’s complicated. Let me go now and I’ll come back and explain everything, I promise.”

“Felix, don’t do that, don’t go away again. You have to understand how scary this is. I thought everything was calming down, you said—”

“I know what I said — I have to go, I’ll meet you guys back at the—”

“I know everything,” Jisung spoke up. His eyes were on mine, impassive. “I read your mind. Leave now and I’ll tell them what you’ve been hiding.”

All their eyes turned to me. I ran my hands through my hair, pulling at it.

“Jisung,” said Haseong, a cue to start explaining.

“No no no no, I’ll do it,” I stammered. “I can do it. I’ve… been seeing my creator. It’s been going on for a month or so. She has this, um, project—”

“She’s amassing a newborn army,” Jisung interrupted.

My eyes squeezed shut. I pretended not to notice their reactions. Shock, fear, disbelief. Why did a day that started so sweet have to end like this?

“Yeah. She’s amassing an army. She recruited me to help. I did for a while, but a few days ago I broke it off. I… don’t know what happened since then. Something must have changed, and now the Volturi, they’re coming to kill her and her army. And maybe me, too.”

Changbin was trembling, all the new information swirling in his head. He put his arms around me, protective.

“How did you always cover your tracks?” Hyunjin murmured. “Your scent would just — disappear, like that.”

“My creator has other people working for her. One is a tracker. He’s been leading you off the trail.”

“You’ve been hanging around with criminals?” Seungmin said. “All this time, lying to us?”

I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Why is your creator building an army?” Chan asked, voice and face calm.

“Because… because she’s not well. She’s been hurt by the Volturi and wants revenge.”

Jisung narrowed his eyes at me. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Not going to say her name?”

I growled. “Fuck you.”

“Ditto. His creator is Fei Ngai.”

Chan’s calm dropped like an anchor. His mouth came open, golden eyes growing wide, something ancient coming back to him.

“Blast it,” Haseong murmured. “I thought we were rid of her.”

“Why?” I said. “What happened?”

“Don’t you know the story?” Jeongin asked.

“She told me _a_ story.”

“Let me guess,” said Haseong, “she was grieving and alone and we abandoned her because she wouldn’t commit to our ethical lifestyle?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bullshit,” Jeongin hissed. “Chan and Haseong accepted her for what she was, but she insisted on bringing all types of nomads into the circle, feeding indiscreetly, tempting Chan and Haseong with human blood.”

“Chan and I decided that it’d be best to part ways after ten years as a coven,” Haseong said. “But she didn’t let go. She held a grudge. She found us, killed four of Chan’s patients and left their bodies in his office.”

I couldn’t look at them. I shrank into Changbin’s arms, voice less than a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

“That was long before you knew her,” Chan said quietly. I hadn’t seen him so upset, emotional. “Oh god, what has she done?”

Haseong took Chan’s hand, held it tightly while he spoke. “Felix, you said the Volturi are coming. When?”

“I-I don’t know. I just saw that they’d be here. It was darkish in the vision?”

“They move fast, they could arrive this morning or tonight. It’s unlikely we’ll be able to pull off an inconspicuous exit from the hotel and Chan’s work and also make it out before they get here, but if some of us came back in two weeks or so, we could cite familial issues and make the extraction then. If we head out now we might be able to make it across the Atlantic before sunup.”

I blinked at him. “But—”

“I’ll shut down the machines.” Seungmin flitted over to the Ferris wheel.

“I can get a head start packing our things,” said Jeongin, standing.

“Good, go,” said Haseong. “Hyunjin, would you help—?”

“Stop — tell me what’s happening,” I half-shouted.

“Felix, you said they were coming to kill you, we can’t stay here.”

“No, I have to warn Fei—”

“You ran away from her,” Changbin said, “twice! Why are you still protecting her?”

“Because I… she’s my…” I leaned into his side, fighting a tremor. “I can’t let her get herself killed.”

“We have to at least… try,” Chan spoke up.

Haseong scoffed. “We don’t have to do a single goddamn thing for her.”

“I loved her — at one point in time. You did as well.”

“You’re saying you still do? After what she did?”

“Christ, Haseong, what would you expect from her? We were never going to part on friendly terms. She was broken, we were all she had left, and we abandoned her — whether it was for a good reason or not, it’s the truth. What I’m saying is, she deserves to know what’s coming, to make amends, and Felix… he should be able to say goodbye.”

“She _won’t_ die.” I snarled it through my teeth.

Chan nodded at me, face calm but heavy. “There’s a chance. The Volturi have a forgiveness policy if the litigant shows remorse for what they’ve done. Felix, you know her, you know she… won’t likely change her mind. But perhaps your vision could sway her.”

“Her remorse won’t stop the Volturi,” Haseong said. “She’s already eluded them for a century, taunted them — she’s notorious. If the Volturi catch her, they’ll kill her whether she’s repentant or not.”

“I can do it,” I said. “I can convince her to regret it, she trusts me.” Unless she had disowned me entirely after our last fight.

“I’ll help you,” said Chan.

“Sweetheart, this isn’t safe.” Haseong spoke only to Chan, his back turned to me and Changbin. “This is putting our family in danger — and for what? _That_ woman? She betrayed us, betrayed our bond. She broke your heart.”

“I’ll go without you guys,” I said. “You can get a head start. I’ll follow after it’s… over.”

“They might kill you,” Haseong said.

“They might not.” Jisung was curled up on the grass, hugging his knees. “Aro likes vampires with gifts. Felix’s ability is more powerful than mine — potentially. Aro may let him live if he thinks Felix will be of use to him in the future.”

“Wouldn’t it be obvious if you saw yourself die?” Jeongin said. “Wouldn’t the vision fade to black or something?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t see myself die, but I _felt_ like I was being restrained, the same way Lucile and the rest of them were. But maybe it was just so I wouldn’t try to save…”

“At this point, Fei has no idea that we know about her scheme,” Haseong argued. “That means the Volturi won’t know, either. If we disappear quietly now, hopefully they’ll leave well enough alone and we’ll be safe — Felix will be safe.”

“I can’t leave her to die,” I said. “She’s family to me. She’s… my mother. Wouldn’t you guys do anything to save your family?”

They traded glances among themselves. Changbin let his forehead down on my shoulder.

“Felix, you can’t get hurt,” he whispered.

“I won’t. I promise.” I didn’t sound very convincing.

“I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I think I do.”

“I’m coming, too,” said Chan.

“Me, too,” said Jisung. “And they’re in, too.”

Hyunjin, Seungmin and Jeongin nodded.

Haseong had his face in his hands. He straightened out and looked into my eyes. Besides the resentment and anger, he was worried for his family. For me.

He reached out and patted my ankle.

“Let’s go,” he said.


	14. mother

I led the way as we ran through the woods — I was the one who knew where Fei had set up camp. I was breathing hard, on the edge of stumbling every step I took. My brothers were close on my heels, diligent, on high alert.

The sound of newborns baying approached. Fei was speaking loudly, almost shouting.

_“Where the fuck is she?”_

I slowed a bit, and the rest followed suit. We peeked through the trees. Fei was yelling at Seojun, who was straight-faced and docile as always.

“We don’t know where she’s gone, Mrs. Ngai.”

“Then where’s Sam?”

“He followed her but the trail was washed away in the channel.”

“Why would she cross the channel?”

“Perhaps she has family on the other side?”

Fei was pulling at her own hair. “Fuck me. That girl was a liability. I shouldn’t have let her get close to Felix, he rubbed off on her.”

It hit me. Lucile was gone.

I leapt through the edge of trees, calling Fei’s name. Her eyes grew wide as she saw me, even wider as Chan and Haseong came to stand behind me. Her hands fisted.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she growled at me. “Why have you brought them?”

“I had a vision.” I felt like the words were stuck in my throat. “The Volturi are coming.”

In a split second, she was in front of me. “Do _not_ lie to me!”

Changbin and Haseong moved forward in unison, tried to size her up. I didn’t need backup. Even now, I wasn’t afraid of her. I was only afraid of what might happen to her.

“You know I wouldn’t lie about this. Aro and the guard are coming to kill you, and I think it’s because Lucile… she left to report you.”

Fei stared at me for a second, unmoved, and then abruptly spun on her heels. She walked up to a tree and slammed her fist into it, again, again, again, until the bark was stripped away.

“Seojun,” she hissed, “when did the rat leave?”

He looked shaken. “H-hours ago.”

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me?”

“Sam thought he could bring her back before you noticed. Mrs. Ngai, we’re not ready to carry out our plan, especially without a choreographed attack, without the blueprint of the palazzo. The newborns have barely grasped the idea of fighting on offence, we can’t send them—”

“Stop talking,” she ordered. “Gather the soldiers and teach them as much as you can. They must be ready.”

Seojun walked off, rubbing his temples.

I approached her carefully. “Fei, it’s hopeless. You can’t win against them.” A knot at the back of my throat made my words waver. “I saw you die. I watched Aro kill—”

“No, that won’t happen. That dog-faced motherfucker will _burn_ at my hand.”

“You have to take this seriously, you have to repent if you want to—”

She gave one loud laugh, no humour in it. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because you should live.” Chan stepped up beside me and looked up into her eyes, earnest. “You deserve to start again, you deserve to heal.”

“Please spare me your sentimentalist bullshit, Chan, you gave me enough of that a century ago.”

“You should be grateful,” Haseong spat. “We came here to warn you, despite what you did to us — despite what I assume you’ve done to Felix.”

“You came here to tell me to grovel at the Volturi’s feet, to beg for mercy from the people I hate most. Did you really think I’d give up that easily?”

“Don’t you think the best revenge is convincing them to let you live? You’ve tormented them for a century, you’re just gonna let them kill you?”

“They won’t kill me.” She balled her hand. “I’ll kill them first. Each one of them. Now leave. I have work to do.”

She turned but Chan caught her wrist. She whipped back to him and snarled in his face. My brothers growled and advanced, I grabbed her and tried to push her away, but she was unmovable like stone, eyes hard on Chan.

“Mei mei,” he murmured.

She softened in an instant, almost imperceptibly.

“I’ve seen you at your lowest. The hurt you’ve lived through, the pain you carry is massive. I only want you to feel the peace I do. You’re too important to too many people to go like this. You’re too important to me.”

She stared at him, anger fizzling. She rocked back and abruptly smiled.

“Perhaps I’m speaking from rage,” she said. “I acquiesce. I’ll appeal to the Volturi’s sympathy.”

But the future stayed the same. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to find an alteration, a difference her choice had made. Nothing. She hadn’t changed her mind at all.

“She’s lying,” Jisung said from the back. “It’s a part of her new plan.”

Fei smirked and shook her head. “A mindreader. The people you attract, honestly.”

“You have to _change_ your mind,” I said to her. “You can’t just walk into this with blind confidence — you need to change the future.”

She sighed. “Felix, you should leave. You’re complicit. I don’t want you in the line of fire once the guard shows up.”

I was starting to get angry, panicky, choked up. “How are you not getting this? They kill you, you and your stupid army, _dead!_ They tear your head off and burn your body — they make me watch just like you had to watch Xiang!”

“Don’t say his name,” she growled. “Chan, Haseong, take him and run. Protect him.”

“You said you would protect me!” I shouted, grabbing her jacket. “You said you would protect me but you’re leaving me — don’t leave me!”

Chan and Haseong took my arms, pulled me back. I resisted, tried to reach out to Fei, who watched, only her eyes betraying her. It hurt her to see me like this — pathetic and crying and begging. But she didn’t reach out to me in return.

Behind us, Jisung’s breath hitched. “Felix, be quiet — shut him up.”

“No, please—!”

Haseong put his hand over my mouth. “Jisung, what is it?”

“They’re coming.”

* * *

The footsteps were gentle but their cloaks rustled the leaves. There were 29 of them, ghosting through the forest. How had they gotten here so fast? Maybe Lucile had been on the fence until she got to Volterra — I’d only seen her choice once it was too late — or the final decision hadn’t been Lucile’s to make at all, maybe it always lay with the Volturi.

Either way, time was out.

Aro appeared first, a shadow cast over his face. As he came into the moonlight, I saw he was smiling a small, pleasured smile. His skin was ashen, hair slicked back, eyes an ancient, weathered burgundy. His black robe hung perfectly to his feet, adorned with red and gold buttons and tassels.

Another two followed after him. One was tall and expressionless, face sagging and worn down with misery, like it was his skin. Marcus. The other was scrawny with long blonde hair, scanning his surroundings with a sneer. Caius. They flanked Aro, hands stowed behind their backs.

Behind them came a perfect row of cloaks, each pale and impassive. Toward the end, Lucile stood and fidgeted, a big hand on her shoulder. Our eyes met for a second but she looked down.

Aro gently clasped his hands together. “Fei Ngai… it’s been too long, hm?”

“Aro. Your guard has grown since last we met.” She spoke English for them; I struggled to translate, my gears and levers jammed, my body overwhelmed. I didn’t think I could move, speak, if I tried.

“Many talents have come to us since our last encounter, yes.” His voice was as soft as a butterfly’s wings.

“I hope you will let me reciprocate,” Fei said. “It is only fair.”

Aro, Marcus and Caius exchanged glances, then Aro lifted his hand, just a little, an affirmation.

Fei turned, whistled into the trees, a quick sound through her teeth. Seojun, Sam and Taya marched forward, an army of vampires on their heels. Fei stood straight-backed in front of them as if they were intimidating. Every newborn present looked terrified — they’d likely heard me screaming about their impending deaths.

“What a valiant effort,” Aro chirped, amused. “You’ve amassed a sizeable number — and kept us off your trail at the same time! How did you ever manage that?”

“I’ve had time to plan,” she said simply.

Though she didn’t make any reference to me, Aro’s eyes moved to ponder us. Chan, Jisung and Seungmin were at my right, Haseong, Hyunjin and Jeongin at my left, Changbin halfway in front of me, wary and protective.

“Mr. Bak, Dr. Bang,” Aro said. “Your coven has grown as well.”

“Aro, it’s good to see you,” Haseong lied. “I’m sure we can come to an objective understanding.”

“Oh but of course.” Aro simpered. “An informant came to us just a few hours back. Lucile?”

She raised her head halfway and put it back down.

“She offered me a unique look into the situation,” he continued. “But, naturally, that is only one perspective. We came to investigate, not blindly convict. I will pursue every avenue of the truth.” His glazed eyes locked on to Chan. “Let’s start with you, doctor.”

Chan let go of me, turned back to look at Jisung. Jisung nodded. Chan stepped forward, hand extended, and Aro flitted over to him. Up close, his skin looked so frail, translucent.

He clasped Chan’s hand in both of his, a gesture that looked almost loving. His lips came open and his eyes blurred. In a few seconds, he had all he needed.

“What you know of the situation is limited,” Aro murmured.

“Yes. I had no knowledge of it before a few hours ago.”

“Who has the most information?”

“I know enough.” Jisung stepped forward, hand out.

Aro was pleased. “Young Han Jisung, you are a talented one, aren’t you?” He touched his own forehead for a second before taking Jisung’s hand.

When his eyes opened, he laughed a giddy little sound. “Ah! You think you can fool me! Tsk tsk, you are not _that_ talented.” His eyes switched to me. I flinched into Haseong’s side. _“You_ are what I’m looking for. There is perhaps something relevant hidden in your mind, something that Jisung” — he smirked — “was trying to protect.”

I just held my hand out to him, failing to keep it from shaking. I was reaching out to the hand that had killed Fei’s son. I felt a kinship with Xiang in that moment, someone I’d never met, who’d died a century before I’d been born. We were both terrified for our lives, for the life of our mother.

Aro’s grip was gentle but tight. He was reading my mind — more than that, consuming my life, seeing everything in an instant. I imagined tentacles slithering from his pores into mine, wriggling into my brain. I was anxious to hear what he had found.

His eyes focussed slowly. “You… you are gifted, too. Very powerful, but you’ve little control over it. Interesting.”

“You also know,” Fei spoke, “how little involvement he had in the situation.”

Aro grinned at her, at me. “Why yes, I do. Such a small role to play. All you wanted was to please your mother figure, hm? I see your repentance, I feel your sincerity. What a bright young thing. You have nothing to worry about.”

He abruptly spun to face Fei. “Something else I found in his mind… you are not repentant, it seems.”

She wore a shocked expression. “That simply isn’t true.” She held out her hand, palm upturned. “Come and see.”

I had to keep my breathing under control. I could feel it coming. I tried to catch her eyes but she was focussed on Aro.

Aro slid his hands around hers and held it close. His smile only grew wider as the seconds passed.

“It was deliberate,” he murmured, eyes entertained, “but of course we knew that. You loathe me with your entire heart, what is left of it. And you are not remorseful.”

Fei’s eyes were black and excited. “You killed every last piece of me two centuries ago. You are not remorseful for that, are you?”

He stroked her hand. “Not one bit. Law above all else. I’m sorry we seem to disagree.”

“As am I.” She looked over his shoulder, at me, for the shortest second, and her eyes were soft. “I guess this is farewell.”

Faster than I could comprehend, she seized Aro’s face in her hands, fingers hooked around his jaw.

Two guards shot forward and ripped her arms off her body. She roared. Aro forced her down, slamming his knee to her back.

She met my eyes.

“My son.”

Aro ripped her head from her body. My eyes were filled with hot tears, my throat full of an earsplitting scream. My brothers held me fast, Haseong and Jisung grabbing my arms, Changbin pushing me away, hugging me, trying to block my view.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stop sobbing. Chan was crying, too. I sank to the ground in Changbin’s arms, my family’s arms around me. I could still feel her, lips gentle against the top of my head, voice sweet and deep like music.

Then I heard a fire break out behind me. And I knew she was gone.


	15. epilogue

Forks Prairie, Washington State, America. Very different from Newcastle. It was farmland, mostly, forests snaking around the territory, rainy and mystic. Haseong had a ‘friend’ named Dmitri who’d set us up with a house in the woods, secluded from humans.

I wasn’t expecting much — maybe a cabin or a hut — but, as we came through the trees, our few belongings in our arms, what I saw was beautiful. Two storeys plus an attic and a couple turrets — one of which Changbin claimed posthaste — and a chimney that would make for a great dramatic entrance. The inside was empty, such a wide open space, walls peeling. I wondered if I could hollow them out, walk around inside like a phantom or a mouse.

“No, you can’t,” Jisung said, walking past me with a box full of records.

 _You’re such—_ “Er, a bluenose.” I still hadn’t gotten the hang of speaking to him through my mind. “They’re probably already hollow.”

Hyunjin knocked on the wall. “Sounds pretty solid to me.”

“You just hit a stud.”

Hyunjin shrugged and followed Jisung upstairs. I wandered into the kitchen, leaned on the counter, looked out the window. Beyond the grassy backyard, the forest was dark and unknowable.

Suddenly I didn’t feel so safe anymore.

That night in Chopwell Park was only a month ago but it felt like forever. Sometimes I still smelled the smoke. Sometimes I still felt breathless.

After Aro had murdered Fei, he’d dusted himself off and watched as his guard killed the newborns. Arthur, Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s daughter. Only Lucile had been spared — she was remorseful, she was their whistleblower. I hadn’t seen her since she’d run into the forest, crying as hard as I had been.

They’d killed Fei’s lackeys, too. Sam and Taya had fought like dogs, Seojun had welcomed it. I’d still been bawling in Changbin’s arms then — the sound of them dying had only made me cry harder. Every last piece of her was being ripped to shreds, her body and her minions and her life’s work. Ripped apart by the man she hated most.

“Felix,” he had said, standing over me. “I do hope you understand why I had to kill your creator. The law has no exception. But you are a very promising young man. You have a place in the Volturi, if you’d so choose.”

I hadn’t answered, I’d been choking on my own tears. A chorus of low growls had sounded from around me — surprisingly Jisung’s had been the loudest.

“Fuck off,” he’d hissed. “Leave him alone.”

Aro had just simpered. “Pity pity.” He’d observed me crying for a while longer, and then — once all the bodies were burned, just ashes in the dirt — he and his coven had disappeared the way they’d come, silently through the forest.

I flinched as Chan put his arm around my shoulders, staring out the window like I was.

“Fei once told me that she felt as though she were unlovable. She thought Aro had taken that, too. But you loved her. I did as well, at one point. She died knowing that. She died feeling your love, and loving you back.”

I was fighting the breathless feeling, hands restless and squeezing at nothing. “I never told her. That I loved her. Not even once.”

“But she knew.”

“I wish I could tell her.”

“Then tell her now.”

“I… love you.”

* * *

After Chan left, I continued exploring the house. The staircase was grand, all curves and old wood. I climbed to the top and slid down the banister a few times. And then a couple more times. And backward once for good measure.

I perused the rooms on the second floor. Seungmin had taken the room farthest to the east, a small one that was probably originally a bathroom. He was sitting on the floor, knees to his chest, head back against the wall. He waved at me and I waved back.

Hyunjin and Jeongin had the room next to his. It was bigger, with pretty casement windows pointing toward the forest. The two were arm in arm, leaning against the same wall Seungmin was. I enjoyed the romantic imagery. They’d work it out. Eventually.

The one next to it was Chan and Haseong’s. They had accumulated dozens of complimentary notebooks from the Royal Station Hotel, and now the pages were strewn across the floor, pinned to the walls. The two hadn’t gotten settled yet — they were still outside, alternately arguing and making out.

The next room was Jisung’s. It was long and narrow, painted a light blue. He stood at the far end, unpacking his duffel bag. I copied his mannerisms until he turned, marched up to me and slammed the door in my face.

“C’mon, don’t be like that, bro,” I said.

He opened the door a crack, gave me a scowl and shut it again. He was warming up to me.

Finally at the end of the hall was our room. It was empty save for the two duffels on the floor and my boyfriend standing over them. I walked over, put my hands on his hips and moved my feet in a two-step. He was confused for a second, and then wound his arms around my neck and moved with me.

“Is this our ballroom?” he asked.

“It’s anything we want it to be. A homey bungalow or a cave behind a waterfall, you name it.”

“How ‘bout an empty cube with squeaky floors?”

“A luxurious palace in a kingdom of our own.”

“There’s a dead rat in the corner.”

“Ooh, our first decoration.”

He twirled me, and I limboed under his arm, hugged him and dipped him back.

“Your mind,” he said simply. I kissed his chin, his throat, down to the hollow above his collarbone.

There was a knock. Haseong was standing outside the room. He didn’t seem surprised by our embrace — it wasn’t the first time he’d caught us mid-dip.

“Yes?” We said it together.

“There’s a beach near here. Feel like a walk?”

I undipped Changbin, and we joined Haseong while he collected the others. We left the house, the wide circle of grass around it, and walked through the forest. It wasn’t as menacing as it looked from the outside, silver light shining through the leaves, the mossy ground squishing under our feet. Soon we found a dirt road and followed it southwest.

“I miss the city,” Seungmin said. “There hasn’t been a single traffic accident since we got here.”

“But we all have our own rooms now!” Hyunjin said. “No humans below or above us, no more noise complaints.”

“There will still be noise complaints,” Jisung muttered.

We walked until the forest gave way to beach. The ground was mushy, littered with driftwood, and the sea reflected the grey of the sky, stretching on for miles until the two met. The eight of us sat in a row on one of the logs.

“I dunno why we have to live on land,” said Hyunjin. “What if we just hung out in the water all day?”

“Like mermen,” Chan beamed.

“I’m down if y’all ever decide to evolve,” I said. “I’m a freshwater kind of guy, mind you.”

“We’d have to get pruny at some point, right?” Jeongin said. “Like, logically?”

Seungmin shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”

“I will not spend any more time in the water than I have to,” Changbin said. “I almost got pureed the last time.”

“Why haven’t we heard this story?”

“Because shut up, that’s why.”

“I dress too well to live in water,” said Haseong. “How am I supposed to enjoy a good pair of slacks if they’re immediately soggy and ruined?”

“That alone is enough reason to drop this idea,” Jeongin deadpanned.

“I’ll have to side with Hyunjin,” Chan said. “I like it here — land or sea. It smells so much better than Newcastle.” He took a deep sniff and let it out with a resonating ‘ahh.’ “Just ocean, no coal or piss to be smelt.”

“I have a feeling about it here,” I said. “I think it’s important.”

“You thought that roadkill we found in Quebec was important,” Jisung said.

“This place is important in a different way.” I waited. “Damnit, I was really hoping I’d have a vision just then.”

“I think it’s highway robbery,” Haseong grumbled. “Fifteen-hundred for a house? Insanity.”

“There goes my college fund,” Jeongin sighed.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Chan, “we were thinking you boys could give high school a try — you know, if Forks decides to build one. It would normalize our presence. Plus something to do all day, a little socializing. Sounds fun, yeah?”

A lull.

“We’ll take that as an enthused affirmative,” said Haseong.

“Isn’t high school just daycare for adolescents?” said Seungmin.

“I hate teenagers, they’re so mean,” Jisung whined.

“Believe it or not, I’ve had my ABCs down pat for a while now,” Changbin rolled his eyes.

“We can discuss later.” Chan stretched his arms and yanked us into a hug. “Let’s just enjoy the moment.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. These moments were getting easier to enjoy; the chilly ocean breeze ruffled my hair, my brothers were with me. Still, there was an absence, an empty space that followed me wherever I went.

Sometimes I couldn’t tell if it was the spot she had left behind, or one that had yet to be filled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading <3


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